


With a clown's nose on

by Cheerssugarplum (cheerssugarplum)



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Babysitter Harry, Circus, F/M, Het, Kid Fic, lol yeah i know.., single mom, single parent, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-25
Updated: 2014-08-25
Packaged: 2018-02-14 15:14:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 24,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2196609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cheerssugarplum/pseuds/Cheerssugarplum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grace flicked through the pages, grinning when there were 3 pictures next to each other of Harry pushing a stroller. “I can see your stroller-pushing-skills are very impressive.” She grinned.<br/>“Thanks,” he said, turning his head to meet her eyes. Playfully, he added, “It takes a lot of training and dedication, to be honest. Have to plan my meals and everything. Always gotta be ready to push a stroller when it comes down to it, right?”<br/>“Yeah,” she laughed, “Like I said, it’s impressive.”</p><p>[Single mom Grace, and babysitter Harry decide to throw a Circus themed party for Lucy’s 7th birthday party together. Harry doesn't stay 'just' the babysitter for very long.</p><p>Featuring: relationship talk while dressed as clowns, parents gossiping on the kids' playground, Niall as Harry's clingy flatmate, several Sophiam appareances, and puppies in costumes.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Who are you smiling at?” Liam asked.

Grace looked up to see that both Sophia and Liam were looking at her, waiting for an answer.

“Why’re you smiling like that?” Sophia grinned. “Who’s texting you? Wait, are you seeing someone? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“What? No, of course not, I would’ve said so if I was.” She brushed her hair behind her ear, and took another sip of the coke. She had to drive home so decided that wine wasn’t an option. Although, this dinner party was so boring, she could’ve probably used some alcohol. “It’s my babysitter, Harry, keeping me up-to-date on Lucy.”

Sophia looked at her with suspiciously squinted eyes. “Okay, whatever you say.”

_//Thanks for the update, Harry, see you in an hour.//_

_//Have fun, darling. Xx//_

 

He’d called her _darling_ right from the start. It had also made her feel weak, right from the start. It did take her a long time to admit that to herself though, it was her _babysitter_ after all. He was a charming, lovely guy, and apparently knew exactly what to say to get pretty much every living being to be fond of him.

When she mentioned her babysitter when she was talking to people, and let it slip that he was – in fact – a _he_ , people immediately gave her weird looks.

And yeah, she understood their concern to some degree. Usually people who babysit are 15 year old girls instead of 20 year old guys with messy hair and tattoos. But she just never felt comfortable leaving her daughter with a young, inexperienced person.

She had tried out some different babysitters before Harry though, and they had all been girls. But they were never as perfect as Harry was. The first babysitter that Grace hired even literally fell asleep on the couch while Lucy was playing with her dolls on the floor in front of her. She’d much rather have a guy in her house, treating Lucy like a fucking princess than a sleeping girl on her couch. Also, it wasn’t really fair to treat people based on gender anyway, so. There was that, too.

 

Contacting Harry, after a mom at Lucy’s school gave her his number, was probably the best decision she ever made for her daughter. The first time they decided to meet, Harry came over for tea, and Grace instantly loved him. He was kind, polite and most important of all, he treated Lucy like she was the most important person in the world, and Grace definitely appreciated that.

Lucy loved everyone but was usually shy around people when she first met them, but not with Harry. She immediately started playing with him and showing him all the toys she had, and drawings she made. Harry had sat on the floor with Lucy, and she would run to her room to get things to show him. Grace and he talked about things while the little girl was running around. And then, in the middle of their conversation, Harry handed Grace a book that had pictures in it of him with kids. Without meaning to, Grace laughed loudly in his face. “Really? Like, a portfolio of your work?”

“Not like that. Not a portfolio.” He grinned. “It’s just, like, showing you I know my way around kids, you know? And – oh Lucy, that really _is_ pretty, did you draw this today?”

Lucy nodded, proudly.

“Just in one day?” He asked, mouth hanging wide open. “I don’t believe that. Really? You finished this _entire_ drawing in just one day?”

“Yes.” Lucy laughed, eyes lighting up.

“You must have super-magical-drawing hands then?”

“I do. Yes.” She replied again, her smile spread widely on her face.

“Oh, you do? I really wanna learn to draw like you.”

“I will teach you.” She said again, and ran away to her room to get more stuff to show Harry.

Harry looked up to Grace again, “Sorry” he smiled, “they’re just, like, references. There are numbers underneath the pictures, so you can talk to the parents and ask things about me. If you want, of course.”

Grace flicked through the pages, grinning when there were 3 pictures next to each other of him pushing a stroller. “I can see your stroller-pushing-skills are very impressive.” She grinned.

“Thanks,” he said, turning his head to meet her brown eyes. Playfully, he said, “It takes a lot of training and dedication, to be honest. Have to plan my meals and everything. Always gotta be ready to push a stroller when it comes down to it, right?”

“Yeah,” she laughed, “Like I said, it’s impressive.”

Harry turned back to Lucy and got right back into a conversation about elephants.

 

Grace had flicked through some other pictures and definitely learned that Lucy wasn’t the only kid that seemed to love him. There were pictures of him with a baby, who seemed to be engaged in a _very_ serious conversation with Harry. And Harry looked _adorable_ , but also strangely handsome in the pictures. She grinned when she saw some of his questionable fashion choices, but tried to keep as silent as she could. But really, though? A black mesh sweater worn over a green shirt with lettering on it? Plus an orange hoodie, all in the same outfit? Well… okay, she had to admit, he still didn’t look half-bad in it. Same with those fedoras, who knew someone could look as attractive as he did while wearing a fedora. But she did love those half unbuttoned printed shirts, they showed off his chest and collarbones nicely, not to mention the tattoo of two birds.

 

The next page of his ‘not-portfolio’ held some pictures of him hanging out with these two cute brunette girls Grace knows from Lucy’s school. The different outfits showed they saw Harry at least 6 times, so that was probably a good sign. The next page was dedicated to this little blonde boy, there was a picture of Harry playing some sort of video game with him. And one where they were sat on a table with food on plates in front of them, they both had the widest humanly-possible smile on their faces.

Her favorite picture was probably the one of Harry on a Segway with the boy, they looked like they were having the time of their life together. Underneath the page was a line that said his name was Ben. Age, 5. Mom’s name, Caroline, with a number next to it. Grace couldn’t believe how much effort Harry had actually put into this book. It was a ridiculous concept, but admittedly, _amazing_.

The last page had a child’s handwriting on it _“Harry, I love you. You make my happy very loud! Love, Maggie.”_

 

“When can you start?” Grace asked him.

 

After 5 months of babysitting her, Lucy literally loved him more than anything. And Harry and Lucy had become the best of friends. Harry would even text Grace to ask how Lucy was if he hadn’t seen her in just a couple days. He cared so much. Not just about Grace’s daughter, but also about Grace herself, he always went out of his way to make sure he helped her out the best way he could.

Anyone who doubted Harry, obviously never met Harry.

 

-

 

Liam pushed Grace’s shoulder and grinned, “What got you so lost in thought? You okay?”

“Sure.” She said, quickly. “What?”

“Sophia was just asking if we’re invited to Lucy’s birthday party.”

Grace hesitated for a second, and okay, she kind of totally forgot about planning that. “Yeah, of course you are. I’m not quite sure what I’m gonna do, yet, though.”

“You could invite some kids to a theme park.” Sophia told her. “That’s what a friend of Joey did a couple weeks ago, it’s so easy. And most importantly, there are no kids making a mess of your house.”

“Yeah.” She said, that could be a good idea, also, it could be arranged last-minute. “But Joey’s two years older, and she’s just turning 7, you know? I’m not sure what theme parks would be fun for kids her age.”

Sophia nodded and promised to think it over.

 

xxxxx

 

Grace got out of her car and walked up to her front door, her hand was lost somewhere deep in her bag, feeling around for the key to her house. Harry opened the heavy door instead, and his low voice greeted, “Hey, you’re early? Was it not nice?”

“No, it was,” She assured him, “Was just _sick_ of wearing heels.” She smiled while pointing at her bare feet. Harry’s gaze went over her black dress, following her legs he saw her standing on her tiptoes. “Literally left them in my car just now, can’t stand to have them in my sight any longer.”

“Can never understand how people walk in them anyway. Same with bare legs out in the winter, do you not feel how cold it is, or…?”

“I know, right?” She agreed, walking past him and accidentally brushing against him, “I feel like I deserve an award or something. Dinner parties are nice and all, but really, on a balcony? In winter, when it’s freezing?” She sat down on the old worn down couch and spreads herself out, like she could fall asleep right then and there. She probably could. How did it go with Lucy tonight?”

“Good. She ate two pancakes, and I fed her some pineapple just before she went to bed. She really loves that, doesn’t she? I cleaned the countertop and stove after making pancakes, so no worries, it’s not a mess. And the floor’s wet because I mopped it. So watch out, it’s probably slippery.”

“Thanks.” Grace said, shaking her head. How many times did she have to tell him he didn’t have to clean up like that? “You know you really don’t have to do that, Harry.”

He shrugged like gesturing that it wasn’t a big deal. “So, we colored for a while, she said she was gonna draw me. But when she was done she had drawn a monkey, said I looked like one with my hair like this.” He ran his hand through his dark curls, and a half-smile showed up on his face. “She did say she liked monkeys though, so I guess I’m flattered by her compliments.”

Grace grinned. “Did she go to bed easily?”

“Yeah, she did ask what time you were gonna be home, though. Like, a couple times.”

“Aww.” Grace grinned, Harry always made sure to tell her that Lucy missed her in some way. “But she fell asleep anyway?”

“Yeah. She did, quite quickly. Read her two chapters of that book tonight so she was really tired after that. And I checked up after 10 minutes, and she was asleep.” He nodded. “Got any new plans for when I should come over again?”

Grace shook her head. “No, but. I _was_ kind of wondering about a thing. Lucy’s birthday is quite soon, it's already in..."  
"Yeah, two weeks." Harry finished excitedly. "Already got her a present, of course."  
She frowned at him, "Oh, did you really?"  
"Yeah of course." He laughed, like the thought of not having a present ready would be ridiculous. Which was mildly awkward, considering that Grace herself still had to run to the shop to get that mini piano Lucy mentioned liking.  
"What is it?"  
"I can't really tell you,” He dropped to his knees on the fuzzy pink carpet Grace bought from Ikea, “it would ruin the surprise, wouldn't it, darling?" He winked and started collecting the puzzle pieces that he and Lucy played with.   
"Hey, no." she said, reaching out to stop him but not knowing quite what to do with her hands by the time they were in the air. "Leave it, Harry, get up. You're supposed to be heading home anyway."  
"It's fine." He said and persistently threw some more puzzle pieces in the box. "I’ve got time." He shrugged.  
"Harry…" She tried to argue. "You already cleaned the entire kitchen. Again, for fucks sake. You did enough."   
"It's fine, Gracie."  
She tried not to blush at the way Harry calls her _Gracie_. When Harry looked up at her and had a smirk on his face, she couldn’t stop herself from wondering if he did it on purpose. Did he know what he was doing to her, every time he called her _darling_ or another pet name?

She got on the carpet as well and sat opposite of him, deciding that helping him clean-up was the only thing she could do. But she didn’t help him before she sighed, "Really, Harry, you're being ridiculous."

He smiled up at her, and he teased, "Well, guess you are too then. Who would refuse someone who voluntarily cleans up their house?"  
She laughed. And okay. Maybe he had a point. Or maybe the way his green eyes were watching her _every_ move, messed up her good judgment. And honestly, she couldn't be blamed for that. It just wasn't fair that he looked as good as he did. It wouldn’t be fair to expect anyone to behave like a normal person around Harry. It wouldn’t be fair, to like, anyone. Harry messed with her brain too easily.

 

God, on a scale from 1 to _fucked_ _up_ , how wrong would it be to be attracted to your kid's babysitter? But his shoulders were so broad, and he was so tall and the way the tattoos of the swallows on his collarbones looked, peaking out of his shirt like that. His hair pushed back in some kind of failed attempt at a quiff. He looked perfect like that.

Harry looked at her like her thoughts were written on her face. So she cleared her throat and started putting some puzzle pieces away. Maybe she could convince Harry to tattoo something like “I’m your babysitter, you’re not allowed to think I’m hot” on his forehead, maybe that would stop her from thinking so many wrong _things_ every time she looked at his face. Judging by the cute, but very strange, scribbles on his bicep, he just might actually do it.

The universe was using Harry as a tool to make Grace’s life hard. That was something she had accepted by now. But when Harry reached for the exact same puzzle piece as she did and, of course, their hands bumped, she just wanted to roll her eyes and say, _Thank you, universe,_ in a very sarcastic tone.  
"Sorry," he said and then giggled. He fucking _giggled_. She laughed softly, but then felt how Harry's warm fingertips were still laying heavy against her palm and it became all she could focus on. She assumed he would pull away.

At one point… one of them had to pull their hand away, right? That's what you're supposed to do when things like this happen. Right? She should _know_ how to deal with this, after spending too many nights watching way too many romantic comedies. She should know what to do.

  
"Anyway," she said, finally getting her head back in the game, she pulled her hand away. She cleared her throat again, which apparently became a nervous habit around Harry. "As I was saying, her birthday…" Harry grabbed the last couple puzzle pieces and closed the box. He looked up at her, giving a nod for her to continue.   
"Well, I kind of forgot to plan a party?” She made it sound like a question, slightly embarrassed. "It's like... time just went by really quick, and as you know – work. And yeah, some stuff happened. It kind of makes me feel like a bad mom to be honest, but…"

“Stop." Harry interrupted, his voice suddenly sounding so loud in the quiet house, she was almost sure she could hear an echo of his low voice. "Don't say that. You're an amazing mom." Even though she hadn’t meant her comment that seriously, Harry almost sounded offended by her thinking she might not always be. He reached out to touch her hand, again. His fingers rough but his circling movement gentle. "Little Lucy fucking loves you. Don't even dare say something like."   
She smiled, no matter how casual her comment really was meant, it was nice to hear she was doing well.

 

She swallowed, watching his hand pull away again and settle on her pink carpet, wondering how it would feel to hold his hand in hers. How tight would he grab her? Whose thumb would be on top? Would his hands get sweaty quickly? Would he wipe it off or would it not matter to either of them?  
Harry’s voice startled her, breaking her thoughts. "So you want me to help you plan a party?"

“Uhm, yeah.” She said, her voice came out softer than she intented. “I mean, I thought we could go to a theme park? Or maybe arrange something in the backyard? With, like, snacks?” She shook her head and admitted, “I’m not sure."  
"Yeah, that’d be great. We could make sure we have loads of games that the kids could play." Harry said, eyes now bright and open, he was staring towards the backyard like he was already picturing all the possible options in his head "Do you wanna do it on her exact birthday?"  
"Yeah, that could work, it’s on a Saturday. I was thinking about a couple kids, like 5 kids, maybe?"  
"Just 5?" Harry asked, obviously not impressed. He crawled over the floor and leaned his back against the closet, patting the floor next to him as if asking her to come over too.

She moved over next to him and asked, "Is 5 kids not okay? Not sure what the guidelines for these things really are?"  
"Yeah, could be okay." He said shrugging. "I mean, she has more friends than that. But, obviously, like, I’m not sure how much money you want to spend and stuff.”

“I haven’t really thought of that.” She frowned, thinking it over. “What do you think though? She’s friends with literally _everyone_ and there are like 30 kids in her class, that’s a bit too many kids, isn’t it?”

“Well, 27.” He grinned at her smugly. And just the fact that he _knew_ that... “You know, we _could_ just go all crazy and invite her entire class? If you take 5 kids to a theme park you’d be spending just as much as you would with 27 here at home. It _would_ make her all popular and stuff."  
"That's so many kids running around in my house." She grinned. "Oh my god, Harry, how am I supposed to handle that?"  
"How dare you question us as a team together?” He bumped her shoulder with his. “Did you even notice how quick we cleaned this entire puzzle off the floor? We're a great team.” He laughed and got up, offering his hand to help her up as well. She took it and he pulled her into a hug right away.

“I’ll come by for tea, okay? I’ll find some things online and we can work out a plan. Cool?”

“Cool, sure.” She smiled and walked him to the door to pay him. “I’ll give you a call.”

 

 

xxxxx

 

 

 

_//Harry, how are you? I’m home from 3pm. Wanna stop by for a cup of tea to discuss birthday plans?//_

_//Hiii, all good thank you. I'm supposed to help a friend out with an art project but I can stop by at around 9.30? Is that too late? Xx//_

  
_Yes_. She was supposed to say _yes_. Because you don’t meet up with your babysitter, slash, party planner, at 9.30.

_//No, it’s alright. See you then. Please ring my phone when you get here so Lucy doesn’t wake up from the doorbell//_

_//Of course, darling, don’t worry. Got some fun ideas!! Xx//_

 

The clock said it was only 5 minutes since the last time she checked, but it felt like ages. Not just because she had work tomorrow and her tired eyes kept reminding her of how much she needed sleep.

But also because it suddenly started daunting on her that 9.30 at night was not a time to meet up for _tea_. She checked the fridge to be sure, but she ran out of coke and literally only had lemonade. Or was she supposed to get some wine ready? Would that seem to date-like? Would that be a bad thing? She didn’t have much to snack either, crackers with peanut butter weren’t a great snack. She really wasn’t prepared for this. Was it weird if she was wearing pajama pants and just refused to change back into her day-clothes? Was she supposed to fix her makeup? Because, well, there was not a chance of that happening. Would it be weird if she kept her mickey-mouse slippers on? Yeah, okay, that wasn’t really up for debate, she definitely had to hide those somewhere.

Just as she threw them in the closet she felt her phone buzz. // _I’m here!_ //

 

“Hey.”

“Hi.” He said, pulling her into a hug, Harry had a strange way of mastering the art of hugging, if there even were such a thing. He always pulled both arms tight around her and rubbed her back a little before he pulled away. His smell got to her every single time they were close. It was a strange, but _perfect_ mixture of the soft and sweetness of baby products and a nice cologne that only fancy rich men wore. “Was just thinking, is this not too late? Cause, you’ve got work tomorrow, don’t you?” He asked, face concerned.

“Yeah, but it’s fine. And I look like a mess, it’s been a long day. I refuse to apologize for it.”

“Still cute though.” Harry shrugged and put his coat on the hook that he had claimed as his own in the last couple of months.

She snorted, “Thanks?”

He shrugged again. “’Course, ‘s cold out, isn’t it?”

She nodded and he followed her to the kitchen. After some small talk about their day while making tea, they walked back to the couch and as he sat down, he said. “What about a circus theme?”  
“What?”

“Circus? Like, clowns and everything?”

She pulled her legs on the couch, her feet were getting way too cold on the floor now she wasn’t wearing slippers anymore. She gave him a look, “I _do_ know what a circus is, Harry.”

“I meant, for Lucy’s birthday party, we could arrange something in the backyard. We could paint their faces and have, like, cotton candy. Popcorn. I could make circus-themed cupcakes.” She didn’t know how to respond, but _yes_ , she would very much like to see him bake cupcakes.

Once, she got back home early and Harry and Lucy were baking cookies together. They both had flour in their hair, and Harry couldn’t stop laughing when he tried to explain the pun of _flours_ in his hair to Grace. She just shook her head and refused to acknowledge it as a joke, until she bursted out in laughter and Harry made sure that Grace was no longer the only one without _flours_ in her hair. Harry even brought aprons that day. One for himself and a little matching one for Lucy, and one for Grace too, just because he didn’t want to leave her out. Grace would _very_ much like to see that happen again.

Harry continued, “Clowns kind of scare the living fuck out of me so I don’t think we should hire one of them. They’re creepy, right? And, just, no, not happening. But what if I just wear giant shoes? And, I _am_ clumsy, so that could be funny, right?”

“You _are_ clumsy.” She laughed. “Remember when you attempted to clean my windows and you fell of the stairs and I came home to, quite literally, your blood on my window.”

He grinned at her. “Yeah, I do remember that. I left the windows dirtier than they were before.” His face frowned for a second and then his face lightened up again. “Did you know I can juggle?”

“Don’t believe that. You kind of proved before that you have the coordination of a…” she didn’t quite know how to end her sentence, Harry’s gaze on her made her too nervous to think straight, “donkey.”

“Well, I personally don’t know any donkeys that have problems with their coordination skills.” Good point, Harry, _good point_. He smirked. “What do you say, though? Circus themed party?”

“Yeah, I think Lucy would love that. In her class they were just talking about the circus.”

He laughed a low laugh. “Yeah, darling, that’s why I thought of it. She seemed excited about it. So we could give her a mini circus in your backyard, right? I could ask my art-friend to make invitations, and something to put on your front door that says, like, welcome to Lucy’s Circus? I could ask some of my other friends to help as well?”

She nodded, and took a sip of her tea. Her fingers were clasped around the cup, trying to warm herself up. And her toes were only an inch away from touching Harry’s thigh, so she decided to slowly slip her toes under him. He was so warm, and her feet were so cold, it was the only logical solution, really. It had _absolutely_ nothing to do with wanting to be closer to him. She stared at his face and waited for a reaction. Harry just set his tea on the little table besides him, before looking down at her feet tucked under him. “Cold?”

“Yeah.”

“You should get some slippers.” _Thanks_ , _Harry, didn’t think of that_. “Here,” he guided her feet into laying on his lap. “I like your socks, by the way.” He complimented while rubbing over the woolly, polka-dotted socks to get them warm, and it felt nice. Kind of strange. No wait, _very_ strange to have your feet in your babysitter’s lap. But also, nice, too.

 “Thanks.” She said, not sure if she was thanking for the compliment on her choice of socks, or for him keeping her feet warm. Both maybe. “Tell me about your ‘art-friend’, is he the blonde Irish one?”

 

Harry told her about how he met Zayn in school and that he thought he was a very strange guy at first. Turns out he _was_ strange but “good strange”, Harry clarified. “Can be really quiet but sometimes he’s just straight-up crazy, especially when he hangs out with another friend of mine, Louis. Together they’re just _horrible_.” He laughed. “Zayn wants to be a teacher. And he does some art things on the side, I mean, it’s not a big deal, really, he just likes doing it.”

“You sound like he’s not good at it?” She asked.

“I’m a friend, I’m not a good judge.” He grinned.

“Who’s the Irish guy then? He dropped you off once, I remember him. He was hilarious, I loved him.”

Harry widened his eyes at her, a teasing edge to his voice. “Oh, very straightforward, you.”

She started laughing, “Come on. Don’t be stupid, not like _that_.”

“Do you want me to set you up on a date with him?” He said grinning, squeezing her feet. “Could make you two an entire dinner someday, and take care of Lucy so you’d have an entire evening with him. It could be very romantic. Candle lights, wine, and everything.”

“What if I said yes?” She joked.

“Could arrange that.” He smirked, and she was sure she heard him hesitate a little, but then he wondered, “I, uh, never heard you mentioning boyfriends though?” Harry said. “Or girlfriends? Or… I don’t know, dates in general?”

She shrugged, “Yeah, well. I don’t really date so there’s not much to mention.”

“You don’t?”

“Nah.” It wasn’t like most people were very open to the idea of having a girlfriend with a child, especially not that at the age of 25, people didn’t expect her to have a 6 year old daughter. And also, it just didn’t seem responsible, introducing random people into her daughter’s life that weren’t going to stay around. Because the truth was, no one really _did_ stay around.

It was silent for a long couple of seconds, and then Harry began with an adorable smug smirk on his face. “Thanks for asking, by the way, I’m single too.” They both stared at each other for a second too long, “Anyway, what’s your favorite food?” He asked. “For if I ever have to set up a date,” he grinned again, “for you and Niall, of course. It’s quite important for me to know what to cook.”

They talked about food and how ridiculous it is that McDonalds still doesn’t deliver at home, like, come on, it’s 2014. And Harry mentioned something about reading that McDonalds actually doesn’t deliver at home because it had something to do with the reward system in a human’s brain. That food tastes better if you have to make a little effort. But personally, he doubted it, because, “Pizza tastes really good no matter how little effort I put into ordering it.” They talked about how pizza was a really awesome invention, but that ordering it is more expensive than it should be. “I don’t like talking shit about pizza, I love a good pizza.” He hesitated for a second and then added. “But in the end it’s just dough with things on it.” She laughed so hard, her feet accidentally kicked Harry’s crotch and he doubled over in pain and hit his nose on her knee. It was pretty hilarious.

 

Somewhere between their second and fifth cup of tea, Harry ended up with his legs propped up on the table in front of them and his arm around Grace, whose head was now using his chest as a pillow.

“Gracie, what time do you have to get up? It’s 2 in the morning.”

“I need to drop of Lucy at school and then work. She’ll be awake in, like, 4 hours though. Someone should invent a thing to make kids sleep longer.” She sighed, Harry’s fingers were rubbing against her arm.

“Pretty sure that stuff _does_ exist but is very illegal. But seriously though, you should have told me to leave. I don’t have to do anything tomorrow, it’s not fair.”

She shrugged. “It’s fine, Harry. Tonight was… really nice.” And it had definitely been nice, it had been a long time since she had good friends over. People that she could actually have a laugh with. She knew some moms from Lucy’s school, and although they were very nice and she did consider them to be friends, the conversations were always about the kids. And what drawings they made that day, or what they learned in school, or how many kids in their class were rumored to have lice.

And then when she met up with people _without_ kids, they never really understood her situation with her daughter. When she’d have to cancel a ‘girls night out’ cause her daughter unexpectedly got sick, they just wouldn’t understand why Grace wanted to be there with her instead of leaving her with someone else to watch her. And at one point, it got old to explain.

But Harry, he seemed to understand. He didn’t act like Lucy didn’t exist, like some of the people she attempted to date did. But he also knew how to keep up a conversation without _just_ talking about her kid. No matter how tired she’d be tomorrow, it was refreshing to have laughed with someone, to have genuinely laughed.

“Shall I stay here?” He asked, voice almost a whisper. “Play with the baby when she wakes up and take her to school?”

She turned her head to give him a questioning look.

“What? I’m serious.” He replied, like answering her thoughts. “I could sleep on the couch until she wakes up, and just go back home after bringing her to school. You could sleep in for… well, not that long, but still.” He quickly added, “Not to get paid, obviously. Like, _obviously_ not like that. Just like, a friend-service thing.”

He was being so serious and, God, she just wanted to kiss him.

His voice got even lower when he was tired, and his words got more slurry and he said ‘like’ a lot more. She sighed. She had no idea how important that information was until she got it. Harry was so important.

“You don’t have to. Thank you though, that’s really nice. But I’ll be fine.”  
“I’m not saying you _won’t_ be fine, like, I could just, like, make it a little easier for you?”

She turned around a little and threw her arm around his torso, like a laid down hug in a slightly awkward angle. “Thank you. Honestly, thanks. But you really don’t have to.” She breathed in the scent of his shirt, of him, and then decided, “You can stay though, just sleep here. You’re so tired. It’s probably not even responsible to drive home now.” And well, _maybe_ that was true. But maybe she just wanted to stay like this a little longer.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“I could fall asleep like this.” Harry sighed.

“Me too.”

And they did. Warm. Together.

 

xxxxx

 

Harry woke up by a little voice asking “mom?” He looked down at Grace sleeping on his chest and Lucy standing in front of him. _Well_ , he thought, _what a new experience_. “Harry?”

“Hi, little Lucy.” He said softly, voice a little croaky. “Did you sleep well?”

“Yes.” Lucy said, teddy bear tight in one arm and the other playing with her dark brown hair. “Why are you here? Sleeping on the couch? With mom?”

Harry tried to get up without disturbing Grace, he awkwardly held her head and shoulders so he could slip away from underneath her. “I was talking to mom last night about your birthday party.” Harry explained with a yawn. He tried to position Grace comfortably on the couch, and smiled at her sleeping face, half covered by her long hair. Even with her mouth hanging open and makeup smudged everywhere, there was something so gorgeous about her. He wouldn’t mind waking up to that face every day. Which was probably, quite certainly, a problematic thing to think about the parent of the kid you babysit. _Shit_.

 

While taking the little girl’s hand and walking her to the kitchen, he noticed the clock say it was only just a quarter to six, which was way too early for humans to be up, even for little humans like Lucy. “Yesterday it got a bit late, so we just fell asleep on the couch.” He explained, and lifted her up to sit on the countertop, next to the sink. “Do you want some lemonade?”

“Yes.” She said excitedly and then her mouth fell open in shock. “Wait, Harry? Did you fall asleep in your clothes? No PJ’s?”

“Yeah.” Harry grinned, but then made his face look sad. “I didn’t bring my PJ’s.”

“What does your PJ look like, Harry?”

Well, usually it was just underwear, _if that_ , but. “It’s blue. Light blue, and it has all these little teddy bears on it. They kind of look like Teddy,” he pointed out, “your bear.”

“Really?” She asked, “Next time you should bring it, want to see!”

“I definitely will.” Harry said and thought, _fuck_ , she was not not going to forget about that.

“Why can’t we wake mom up?”

“Mom didn’t sleep a lot last night, and she has to work _aaaall_ day long.” Harry clarified. “So she’s going to sleep a little longer now, yeah? We can just play in your room for a bit? Or, watch some TV in mom’s room? How about that? Do you think Spongebob is on?”

Lucy squealed, “Hope so.”

 

Grace woke up to the sound of Lucy’s laughter and – Wait. What. Laughter? As her eyes slowly started to adjust to the light she recognized where she was. On the couch. In her living room. Two half-empty cups of tea on the table, and, _oh_ – Harry, the little shit.

Hey eyes flashed at the clock to see that it was almost 8, the longest she slept in in the morning since, well, the day her baby was born, probably. There was no way Lucy had only _just_ woken up. Harry was such an asshole, for letting her sleep in like this. And okay, maybe that wasn’t the general definition of asshole. But still.

“Lucy, we’ll wake mom up in 10 minutes, is that okay?” She overheard Harry’s voice. “Look. When _this_ hand of the clock is _here_ , we’ll go get mom, okay?”

“Okay, I’m sorry, mom’s just better at doing my hair than you.”

“She is, isn’t she?”

Grace stepped in the room and said, “Morning.”

Lucy got off the bed immediately and came running up to her. She extended her little arms to be lifted up into a hug. “Mommy, Harry said you didn’t sleep very well, are you okay?” Grace sat Lucy on her hip and she could feel the pull in her back, soon she wouldn’t be able to carry her daughter like this anymore.

“Yes, I did sleep very well actually. Comfy. And slept for very _long_ , too.” She turned her face to send Harry a grateful smile. “Thank you.” She mouthed, and then asked Lucy, “Did Harry tell you to let me sleep?”

“Yes. And he asked if he should comb my hair for me, but. I don’t want that.”

“You don’t?”

She shook her head and Grace smiled at her. “I’m the best at doing your hair, eh? Come, let’s get some breakfast, I’m really glad I slept in, but we’re running late now.”

“We had breakky.” Lucy said.

“What? Did you?” Grace looked over to Harry for conformation, his hair had flattened down during the night and it looked longer now. It was beautiful. He got off the bed and walked up to put an arm around her shoulder. It was way too early to deal with his handsomeness this up-close, and everything was just – unfair. He was so warm and beautiful, and wow, so _close_.

“We did have breakky already, didn’t we? What did we have again?” He asked Lucy, and Grace just loved the way he talked to Lucy. He never acted like she was a little girl, he always tried to make sure she knew her opinion mattered. And Grace loved that, because so many people talked over the girl’s voice. But Harry really treated her like a friend, just a _short_ version of a friend.

But Harry somehow also managed to teach her so much. He didn’t just help her with little homework assignments she got from school, but he also helped Lucy develop as an individual. He helped her with coming out of her shell a little bit more, taught her that she didn’t have to be scared. Lucy’s confidence grew a lot in the last couple of months that Harry was around.

He always asked _her_ to tell stories instead of talking himself, he always asked her questions so she could talk. And there was something so nice about Harry giving her all the time in the world.

“Yoghurt.” Lucy yelled.

Harry nodded. “We did, didn’t we? Soy yoghurt, right? ‘Cause we’re being all healthy and stuff. And what did we have with it, again?”

“Fruit.” Lucy yelled, louder this time. “Lots of fruit.”

Harry met Grace’s eyes and carefully smiled, “Hope you don’t mind I used up the strawberries in the fridge?”

She snorted. “How dare you feed my child healthy things? How dare you, Harry?”

They both laughed a little and Grace said, “I’m just going to have to get you dressed now then, right?”

“ _I_ can do that. You do your things. Go get ready for work, and everything.” Harry told her.

“Honey, it’s fine.” Honey. _Honey_. She called him _honey_. It was an accident, honestly. But Harry smile widened at her, and it made her feel like she was about to get sick, in a good way though. For as far as that could be a good thing.

“Okay, _darling_.” He replied, dragging out the word with his lips curving up even further, and putting his teeth on full display. “What do you want to bring to work for lunch? I’ll get it ready.” Her chest almost exploded by how fucking domestic he was being. And she definitely wasn’t complaining.

She put Lucy back on her little feet again. “Go find a top to wear today, Luce. It’s a little cold outside, so long sleeves, okay? I’ll be right back.”

 

 

She walked Harry outside of the room and just stared at him for a second, “How are you real?” She wondered out loud, immediately regretting it. “Sorry, I just...”

“What?” Harry asked, frown between his brows.

“What’s wrong with you?” She said confused. “No, wait, I mean that in a good way. Honestly, is there _anything_ wrong with you? Do you have bad qualities? Cause I can’t find them.” She took a deep breath, realizing she had to get a grip on all these words spilling out of her mouth without wanting them to. She felt an embarrassing heat on her cheeks but just couldn’t seem to stop. “You’re, like, a perfect human.” She just got him out of the room to thank him and now she couldn’t stop spitting all these compliments at him.

“I thought you were mad at me for a second.” He said, and then his face breaks out in a grin. “Aww. Thanks.”

“I just. Wow. I almost slept until 8 and you’re just. Here. Taking care of things. Thank you?” She sighed, happy that at least she finally got the _thank you_ out. “Like, thank you.”

“Sure, darling.” He said while pulling her into a hug. “Of course.” He rocked her a little side to side. His cologne had faded but he still smelled so nice. “So, you want a sandwich for lunch?”

“Whatever, Harry. Just throw a banana in my bag and I’ll love you forever.”

“Banana, it will be.” He grinned, and left for the kitchen. “Plus, a sandwich. Bananas are pretty amazing but, you can’t live on them.”

Grace still couldn’t believe he was real.

 

It had become a nice little ritual this past year. After getting dressed, Lucy would sit on the floor in front of the couch and Grace would comb her hair. It was quality time, a calm moment before the chaos of the day began. If they had enough time, they would put on some kid’s TV show and Lucy would eat breakfast and love whatever was on in front of her. But they didn’t have time for that today, and Lucy already had breakfast before. “Finished.” Grace told the little girl, snapping the elastic at the end of Lucy’s braid. Harry came walking out of the kitchen with Lucy’s lunch box in one hand, and a little brown bag in his other one. It had ‘ _I’m a lunch bag_ ’ written on it, in Harry’s handwriting.

Grace started laughing. “ _I’m a lunch bag,_ Harry? Really?” She shakes her head and wondered if Harry thought she was 6 as well.

“It’s not a lie, is it?” He grinned. “It _is_ a lunch bag.”

He sat next to her on the couch, way closer than he needed to and Grace told him, “Thank you, though. You’re just…"

“Sure.” He cut her off. He probably got a bit creeped out by all her compliments. “You go get ready for work. I’ll take it from here, bring her to school, yeah?”

“Harry.” She tried to argue, but then looked at the clock, and. Shit. Lucy had to be in school in just 15 minutes. And since the drive would be about 10, she really didn’t have a choice.

“It’s no problem.” He said while getting up again. He tucked Lucy’s lunch box into her bag and set Grace’s lunch bag on the floor next to her handbag. He then turned to Lucy, who was inspecting the tail of her braid, and told her, “Hey, can you say bye to mom now? I’m bringing you to school today, is that okay with you?”

Lucy looked at her mom and nodded, jumping in her lap for a hug.

 

Grace walked them to the door and still couldn’t believe she was actually accepting Harry’s offer. It wasn’t like she had another choice though, besides being late. But still.

“Harry.” She said softly.

“Lucy, you’ll go sit in my car already, okay? Think about the music you want to listen to, yeah? Maybe find the Selena Gomez CD.”

“Bye mom.” She waved and skipped to the car.

“Bye baby.” Grace waved back, and then turned to the tall guy in front of her. “Harry.” Grace started again, wanting to say _thank you_ , but stumbling over her words. “Just. Are you sure? I mean – thanks, but. Really?”

Harry leaned in to kiss her cheek and then pulled her into a hug. Her hands found his back and she could feel his muscles tighten when he pulled her even closer. “Gracie, darling, it’s alright. I’ll call you later, okay?”

“Thank you.” Grace told him, “You’re really – thank you.”

 

Grace was about to leave for work, when she heard her phone buzz in her bag, a selfie of Lucy and Harry in front of her school. Grace’s heart felt like it was about to explode.

// _Thank you so much, H_.// She texted him back.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

/// _Hiii, you okay? Don’t wanna call you when you might be busy, but can I stop by for tea this afternoon? Hope so. Xx_ //

// _Hey, sorry, I’m dropping Lucy off to stay with a friend and I’m out for dinner tonight. So I won’t be home till around 10. But again, thank you so much for this morning, I haven’t slept in till that time for years!! Thank you_.//

// _Glad you’re happy. :) Okay, have a nice dinner, what time will you be home? I’ll see you at 10. Xx_ //

 

Wait. What.

When did this became a _thing_ they did, meeting up late? Not that she really minded it, of course. But. Still. What.

 

“Here.” Harry said, first thing after Grace opening up the door. “Bought you some things.”

She grinned at how he literally shoved the white plastic bag into her hands. “Strawberries?”

“Yeah, figured you didn’t have time to run to the shops today, and some bananas, since you ran out of them too. And grapes, mainly cause I just really like them. And…”

“Cookies.” Grace squeals, a little embarrassed by her how her voice came out _so_ excited. She just really loved chocolate chip cookies, who could blame her?

“Yes. Thought it’d be nice if we had a snack tonight.” He smirked. “And some chips. And coke. And slippers. For your feet.”

“Oh my god.” Grace laughed, and grabbed the fabric in the bottom of the bag. “Oh my god.” She said while pulling them out, and yes, they _were_ slippers… in the shape of some sort of fuzzy dog-like creature. “Oh my god, Harry.” She laughed, apparently those words were all her vocabulary existed of tonight.

Harry closed the door behind him and said, “You like it? Did I forget anything?”

“Harry, oh my god.” She said, again, like she just couldn’t stop. She gave him a hug even though her hands were full and that made it slightly awkward. She leaned her hand on his shoulder when she put the slippers on and said, “Love it. Look at them, they’re so cute. Fuzzy. You’re such an idiot though, thank you.” She grinned. “I love them.”

 

“So you were out to dinner?” He asked, once settled on the couch again with a glass of coke, a bowl of chips and packet of cookies. “Thought you said you didn’t go on dates, eh?”

She grinned. “Since when does going to dinner equal going on a date?”

“Since always.” He grinned, opening up the packet of cookies and taking one out.

“Nah, just some colleagues. This guy is leaving the office, and he took us out to dinner.”

Harry waved the cookie in front of Grace’s mouth and stilled his hand when she leaned in to take a bite. “Don’t tell me you eat these cookies with those tiny little bites? It’ll take forever.” He groaned. “I’m sure an entire cookie can fit.”

She grinned, the cookie tasted like an expensive brand, and she grinned, of course he would’ve. Sometimes Grace wondered if Harry even needed the money he made with babysitting. Like, yeah, he was a student, so he probably had a huge loan somewhere. But he always bought these expensive things. Last week he had come over with coloring pencils for Lucy that cost more than he would’ve made with three evenings of babysitting. His parents were probably rich or something, or maybe he felt bad that Lucy had made him so many drawings. Or maybe he just liked cookies.

“Come on, you have a big mouth.” He said, face amused as he pushed the cookie against her lips. She accepted the challenge and tried to fit the entire cookie inside her mouth. She could barely close her mouth when it was fully in though, and she was quite sure this challenge didn’t make her look very attractive. Harry poked her cheek and said, “See? Was sure it could fit.” He didn’t make any of it sound like an innuendo, and she wasn’t sure what she would’ve done if he did. But she laughed anyway, trying to keep her mouth closed and only half succeeding.

She took a cookie out of Harry’s lap and offered it to him, when he tried to take a bite of it, she shoved it fully into his mouth. He pretended to gag slightly, and it left them both laughing. Grace wiped some crumbs that had fallen on her pajama pants onto the floor.

“Shit, sorry,” Harry said, intense and sudden, his mouth still half full with a chocolate chip cookie. He collected a couple leftover crumbs of the dark, checked fabric into his palm and was looking around, wondering where he could leave the couple little crumbs.

“Harry,” She grinned and tapped his palm so the crumbs fell onto the floor. “I’ve got a kid, right? I’ve accepted dirty pants and floors.”

First, his eyes widened as he stared at the crumbs that had fallen on to the floor, but then he looked back up Grace and asked, “Where’s Lucy at anyway?”

“Staying with Sophia and Liam. Their son, Joey, you’ve probably seen him before, he’s a friend of Lucy. And they’re bringing them both to school tomorrow. It’s nice to have a night alone sometimes, you know?”

Harry’s face dropped a little, “I’m probably really annoying for stopping by tonight then.”

“No, I like this.” She said truthfully, she reached out her hand to grab another cookie out of the packet on his lap. But somehow she ended up splaying her fingers on his thigh. His dark jeans were so tight, if she were to try and pull the fabric, she’d probably pinch his skin. She wanted to feel his skin. She wondered if his thighs were paler than his arms. “I like being alone sometimes,” She explained, “but you make me happy too.”

He smirked. “That’s good.”

 

Grace wondered if it was too early to snuggle up against him already. Yesterday she used the excuse of being tired and cold, but, it wasn’t _that_ cold tonight. And he even bought her fuzzy slippers so she wouldn’t have to have cold feet. And, it was only just past 11.

But she just wanted to feel the closeness of their bodies against each other, like last night before they fell asleep. And yeah, it was _wrong_ and everything. Because what happened yesterday was kind of an accident. No one really planned on snuggling on the couch, it just _happened_. But it was wrong regardless. Harry wasn’t here to snuggle but – wait. Why _was_ he even here tonight?

 

“Did you talk to Zayn?” She asked, finally moving her hand away from his thigh and reaching for a cookie.

He got his phone out of his pocket, “Look, he already made this thing.” He showed her a picture of a design that said LUCY’S CIRCUS in big light-blue letters above a little red-white striped circus tent. It had the date of the party underneath it in big fancy numbers. “Do you like it?”

“Oh my god, yes.” She said, leaning closer to see the screen better.

“And then,” he swiped to the next picture, “we could print this on the inside of the card.” It was a red background and in a cute white font, it said; ‘ _Dear ………, Lucy would like to invite you to join her 7 th birthday party on Saturday the 23rd. We hope you can be at our house at noon. Tell your parents they can pick you up around 4PM. We’ll provide some good snacks and fun games to play! Please let my mom know if you can attend my circus party? _

And then there was Grace’s phone number and address underneath. With a tiny drawing of an elephant balancing on a ball.

“Harry?” She squealed. “That’s so cute. I didn’t expect that. It’s so cute.”

Harry lifts his arm and tilted his head to the side as if asking her to move closer to him.

“It’s perfect.” She said again, and found herself relaxing against the side of his body. “When I asked you to help, I really didn’t mean you had to go this far.” She looked up to his face to see how close they were. _Really close_ , was the answer, really close. “I just meant like, helping me figure out how much cake to order?”

“I thought I was baking cupcakes?” He said, almost offended.

She grinned. “Exactly my point, Harry. That would be lovely, but you really don’t have to do that.”

“Stop saying that all the time.” He laughed, and then demonstratively told her, “I’ll do whatever the fuck I want.”

She looked up at him again, and just grinned back at him for a second before going along with whatever he started, “Okay well, _relax_ , okay? Chill out, you can bake your cupcakes.”

“I definitely will.” He said convinced, and blinked slowly.

“Bet you’re good at making them.” Grace thought out loud and leaned her head in the crook of his neck. She could feel his chest rise and fall with every intake of breath, and his voice came out so low and smooth, she could feel the vibration of it in his chest. “So we’re inviting the entire class?” He asked, “Are there any other people you want to invite as well?”

“Sophia and Liam’s kid is in a different class, but he’s friends with Lucy, so I want to invite him. And Sophia texted me that she could help me at the party.”

“Why? Are you doubting me? As in, us together?” Harry had probably meant it as a joke, but it came out too sharp and intense.

“No. I wouldn’t ever question _us_.” Grace said, and she didn’t know if her statement was _just_ related to the planning of the party.

Grace shifted a little, her ear brushing over his collarbone, over his skin. Her cheek was resting on his bare skin, and it felt so comforting to touch him like that. Safe. And in a strange way it felt like she was meant to be there. It was easy.

 

She looked down at his body and from this angle it seemed like his shirt was unbuttoned much further than it usually was. Harry already proved before that he was a fan of an excessive amount of cleavage, he displayed the birds on his chest pretty much every chance he got. But this time, she could even see the edge of a tattoo on his stomach, and she frowned a little, trying to remember what it was. She tried to think about the times she could’ve seen that tattoo before. That time Lucy got sick on him just as Grace stepped into the door, Grace had helped him take off his shirt and he said he’d probably have a spare shirt in his car. But she couldn’t remember seeing a tattoo on his stomach.

Or maybe that time, just a couple weeks ago, before winter kicked it. It got so hot outside that Harry brought a little blow-up pool with him. He set it up and then spend the rest of the afternoon cooling off and playing in it with Lucy. He even refused to get out of it when Grace got home from her dentist appointment. Harry claimed it was too hot for clothes. Grace accepted her faith when Harry and Lucy joined forces and pushed her in the pool. It was so tiny that all of their limbs got tangled as they sat down in it together, but no one really minded. They played catch until the sun set, and Grace served French fries and steamed veggies.

Grace could definitely remember how he looked that day, without his shirt, muscles defined without actual abs showing. She could definitely remember that that was the day Harry explained that he had ‘baby nips’ underneath his nipples. Grace didn’t stare at him or anything, but – yeah, okay, she definitely _did_ stare at him. And she certainly couldn’t remember seeing this tattoo before.

 

In a way, it was a little distressing, to think that there were tattoos she hadn’t seen before. Parts of Harry she had not yet seen. Did he have other tattoos she didn’t know about? When did he get them done? What did they mean to him?

It didn’t seem like one of the strange cute scribbly tattoos he had on his arm, this one seemed like it promised to be something great. She sighed, knowing she didn’t have the right to know anything, especially considering that she was just the mom of the child he babysits. She didn’t even have the right to _care_ about his tattoos. But still, it felt strange to be so close to something and not know what was. From how little there was revealed of the tattoo, she couldn’t even guess how far it spread underneath his shirt. Were his hips covered too? Was there still skin unmarked in some places? She didn’t know what she was hoping for, and didn’t know if she was even allowed to hope for anything.

 

She carefully moved her hand up to the soft fabric of his shirt, pulling the highest closed-up button away from his stomach just a little bit. She knew it was wrong and that she really shouldn’t try to nonchalantly peek in his shirt, like it wasn’t a strange and somewhat creepy thing to do. But who could blame her? And her efforts didn’t pay off anyway, there wasn’t much give in the fabric, mainly because it was trapped under Grace’s body.

 

“You okay there?” Harry whispered softly, like the silence had left him sleepy already. Grace could feel his warm breath dancing over the top of her head.

She nodded cautiously, not wanting to move too much and disturb him, he sounded drowsy, and she hoped he would fall asleep soon. She played with the button of his shirt in her hand while staring at the two birds on his chest. She obviously _had_ seen those before, but never this up-close. _So_ close. She felt that the hand behind her lift up, and he was starting to caress over her back. His fingertips running over her top in short and gentle movements. She snuggled a bit closer to him, further into Harry’s side and pulled her legs up on the couch with her. It was starting to feel like the only logical option, getting closer. And closer, and maybe even a little closer after that.

She could feel him slowly starting to move around a little, and she wondered if she went too far and made him uncomfortable. It made her stomach feel tight, just thinking that Harry could just get up any second. He could give her a weird look and ask her why she was acting strange. If that were to happen she would just have blame it on feeling cold again. Or maybe she could say she was sad. Harry would understand that.

But she wasn’t cold at all, and there wasn’t a cell in body that contained any sadness. Unless Harry pushed her away, of course, then a sad part would be easy to find.

Harry shifted again, and Grace lifted off to see his face. She sat up and he smiled back at her, she couldn’t make up what kind of smile it was, but it looked like a genuine one. So at least he didn’t hate her. He moved his legs to lie aligned with the couch’s length, and Grace adjusted so he could lie comfortably. He laid his head on the side of the couch and left just enough space between the side of his body and the backrest of the couch for Grace. She squinted her eyes for just a second to make sure she was reading him right.

“Darling, lie down.” He said, voice low and soft, and she snuggled up against him.

Grace’s head found the same position as before, laying softly on his chest. His arm was tight around her, like a reassurance that he was determined to keep her safe and warm.

“Were you looking at my tattoos?” He asked, voice almost silent.

“Yeah.” She said. She could see the skin of his chest and part of his throat forming little bumps whenever her breath reached it. She wondered if he was cold. Without thinking, she stroked her fingers over his skin, unsuccessfully attempting to smooth it out. Her hand trailed further down until she stroked over one of the birds. She looked up at Harry’s face, a little shocked by her own boldness. She found him smiling down at her, which probably meant he didn’t seem to find her _that_ crazy so far. “I like the birds.” She said carefully, keeping the volume of her voice low and steady. Like the impact of her voice could destroy the delicate moment.

“Birds fly.” Harry stated, his voice calm.

She couldn’t help but giggle just a little before agreeing. “They _do_ fly.”

“If you could fly anywhere,” he asked, “where would you fly to?”

And if she leaned in to plant a tender kiss on his bare chest – well, no one could prove a thing.

“I’m fine here.” She said, her finger lightly caressing over the skin she just kissed.

His free hand tucked some loose strands of hair out of her face, his thumb lingering on her skin. “Me too.” He squeezed her a little tighter and added, “I’m _more_ than fine here.”

 

After she was sure at least 10 minutes must’ve passed, and she wasn’t even sure if he was still awake, she whispered, “Hey?”

He hummed.

“Is this weird?”

He looked down at her, frown on his face, “What is?”

“This.” She said, looking up gesturing her hand between the two of them.

He gave a slight shrug. “Doesn’t feel weird.”

Harry turned himself on his side to face her, Grace’s moved her head off of his chest and leaned her head back. She could slowly see the frown reappearing on his face, crease settling deep between his brows as he leaned himself on an elbow, his upper body almost hovering over her.

“Does it feel weird to _you_?”

His voice sounded deeper and rougher in her ears, and his body above her felt like it was radiating heat. His eyes never left hers and the look in them was so intimate, so intense, so safe.

He looked at her like she was all that could ever matter to him. And Harry was all that mattered to her, too. The lighting from the lamp from behind the couch made his features look beautiful, angles sharp but skin soft, covered with a yellow hue

His fingers found her side and slowly caressed before he settled his hand on her hip where her top had ridden up. The press of his thumb reminded her that he was waiting on an answer, but she couldn’t remember the question. Not with how his eyes began to wander over her body underneath him. From the way his thumb dented the skin on her hip just slightly, to the way her top hung creased loosely around her stomach and got tighter around her boobs. His gaze went over her throat, swallowing tightly before his eyes met hers. He reached his hand up to her jaw, lifting it up just a little bit.

It wasn’t until Harry slowly leaned it, and she could feel his warm breath directly escaping his lips to warm up hers, that she realized just how _natural_ this felt.

 

Her heart was pounding so fast, she couldn’t tell if she was mixing up Harry’s pulse with her own or if it was just her own body reacting in a way that never happened before. Considering the closeness of their bodies, she decided to go with _probably_ _both_.

She laughed against his lips, because, for fuck’s sake, they were _just_ kissing. Her hands were tangled in his wavy curls, and she pulled on it just a little when she felt like her body was going to give out, there was a slight chance that she might’ve forgotten to breathe.

Harry leaned back a little bit and, almost just as out of breath as her, he asked, “You good? This okay?”

She grinned, because, in what universe would this _not_ be okay? It was strangely reassuring to see how he was _almost_ just as affected by this as she was. His pupils had dilated, his lips seemed fuller and pinker, cheeks more flushed. Like a physical conformation that she wasn’t making all of this up in her head.

His hair flattened out against his head too, which was probably just Grace’s fault for moving her hands through it so roughly. She let out a giggle, knowing that if this was how they both reacted to a simple make out, they probably couldn’t handle it if they went any further than this.

But _god_ , she would love to prove her theory wrong.

“You okay?” Harry asked again, a concerned expression on his face reminded her that she probably had to answer him at some point.

“Really okay.” She breathed out, letting her lips curve into a smile. “Just, overwhelmed.”

He hummed. The gentle introduction of his lips to her jaw was in sharp contrast to how he went on using his teeth just a little down to bite down softly on her throat. He soothed her skin with his tongue. “I’ve got you, darling.”

She tried to calm herself down, this was all too much. Harry was too much.

She was trying to remember that time she went to that free meditation class with Sophia. The teacher said something about not letting sensations control you. Something about controlling your breath. But. But. Her teacher most likely had never been underneath Harry. Had never had her hips grabbed, and never had Harry pull her lips between his teeth.

And all she could focus on was _Harry_. Nothing existed besides Harry and the parts of her body that Harry was touching. Her neck, where her skin was tingling from all the different sensations he was giving her. Her chest, where Harry’s body was pressed tightly against. His hand that was gripping her hip so tightly it almost hurt. Almost. And it still wasn’t enough.

Harry’s hand slid up over her body, over the side of her boob, and he thumbed over her nipple and – _oh, fuck meditation_ , she decided. Harry’s hot mouth found hers again and she felt his soft lips covering up hers. _Fuck it all._ She just wanted everything. Everything, whatever. Fuck meditation. Fuck everyone. No wait, fuck Harry. Yes, _fuck_ Harry very much. Now. Always. Forever. Whatever. _Harry_.

 

xxxxx

 

The next morning they woke to the ringtone of Grace’s phone. Which was probably a good thing, they had been a little, uhm, busy to set up an alarm last night. Grace checked the time and sighed, she was supposed to meet up with Sophia in, shit – half an hour.

Her phone didn’t recognize the number, and she wasn’t awake enough to think if the digits looked familiar to her, so she answered, “Uhm, hello?”

“Grace?”

“Uhm,” She tried to recognize the male voice, but her head was still a bit clouded by sleep, “yeah, uhm, who’s this?”

An Irish accent kicked in, “Niall, I’m Harry’s friend and he didn’t come home last night. And Zayn, a friend of ours, said he was probably with you. And he…”  
“Oh.” She interrupted, her mind clearing up. Wait. What. Why was Harry’s friend calling _her_? “Hi Niall.” She turned her head to look at Harry, who stopped rubbing his eyes when he heard the name.

“Niall?” He whispered to her, frown creasing above his nose. “ _My_ Niall?”

She nodded. “Uhm, do you want to talk to him, or?”

“Wait, so he _is_ with you? Again?” Niall laughed loudly, “He’s so embarrassing when he’s got a crush, oh my god. Can you tell the fucker to turn his phone on?”

Grace grinned a little, even though it was unhuman to be this chirpy in the morning, this Niall guy seemed alright.

Harry waved to get her attention back and signaled for her to give the phone to him. “Well, you can tell him yourself.” She grinned. “Bye.”

“Hi.” Harry said after getting the phone to his ear, his morning voice sounding low and hoarse. “Chiiiiill.” She heard Harry drag out. “Niall, I’m not dead.” A little silence before he said, “Yeah, I’m at Grace’s. Obviously, since you called her phone. We fell asleep.” Another short silence, and then he grinned a little, or groaned? Grace couldn’t quite tell. “Yes, _again_ and oh my god, Niall. Well, I don’t know, man. Think my phone ran out of battery. But like, I’m not dead, so it could be worse, don’t worry.”

The conversation went on for a little while and Grace didn’t quite follow their topic of discussion anymore, it was too early to pay attention.

She was more interested in staring at Harry’s face anyway. And she was definitely _not_ remembering how that same exact face was between her legs last night. No, she was definitely _not_ thinking about how he got her legs to tremble so easily. Definitely not, except, yeah, maybe a little.

 

Harry hummed for Niall to continue whatever he was saying, and he beckoned Grace to come closer to him. God, she tried not to look at his fingers and think about his skilled giant man hands. Harry leaned up for a kiss and Grace puckered her lips a little.

“Shut up, Niall.” He laughed immediately afterwards.

Grace wondered if he heard the smack of their lips. Niall and Harry seemed close, so probably figured out that they had sex by now and she couldn’t help but question what Harry’s friend would think of it all, the whole babysitter-mom thing. She wasn’t sure if Niall would be making fun of him or praising him. That was a thing guys did, didn’t they? She wasn’t even sure if she was allowed to care what his friends thought.

 

Grace decided to head off to the kitchen. She figured that she was going to be late to meet up with Sophia no matter how much she’d hurry anyway. So when Harry would be done with her phone, she would drop her a text that she had to cancel. Sophia would understand. Especially if Grace were to tell here the reason why she had overslept. Who wouldn’t understand, really? It wasn’t like Grace woke up next to someone like Harry every day. The least she could do was to celebrate it with a nice cup of tea.

 

When Grace came back out of the kitchen, she saw Harry sit down on the couch in the living room. He was awkwardly pulling his shirt down with Grace’s phone between his shoulder and ear.

They headed to Grace’s bed just after she had helped Harry take his shirt off and he almost fell off the couch. Luckily, his legs caught up to his body. It absolutely would’ve been a very different night if he had actually smashed his head into the coffeetable. He proved, once again, that balance and gravity really weren’t Harry’s thing.

 

“Thanks, darling.” Harry smiled at her when she put the steaming cup of hot tea in front of him. Harry laughed at something Niall said over the phone. “Yes, Niall, _you_ will always be my number one darling.”

He met Grace’s eyes with a smirk on his face and wrinkled his nose. “Yes, Niall, I’ll always love you most.” He shook his head and squeezes her knee. His hands warm on her bare knee. Oh, right, she forgot to put on pants. Just a shirt and underwear would have to suffice then. “Okay, gotta go now, yeah? Yeah, love you too. Will call you.”

He hung up the phone and rolled his eyes. “Clingy flatmate.” He grinned. “He got your number from Zayn who put it on the invitations.”

She grinned, Niall sounded like quite a character. Harry leaned in to plant a kiss on her lips. “Thanks for the tea.”

He took a sip, and “Fuck. Fuck.” He shouted, almost throwing his cup of tea back on the table.

“What?” She yelped and sat up immediately, not understanding what was going on.

He rubbed his lips, and – oh, god his lips. His lips really were a wonderful creation, Grace wasn’t sure if she believed in a God but she definitely felt the need to thank God for Harry’s lips. “Tea’s fucking hot. Wow. That was fucking hot.” He said again, voice already starting to sound a little less frantic. He let out a little bit of laughter and sighed. “Shit. That really _was_ hot.”

“Oh my god.” Said Grace, and yeah, this was probably not the best moment to think ‘ _no harry, you’re hot._ ’ But, there was something so attractive about hearing him swear like that. Most of the time when she spoke to him, they were around Lucy too. And he made up the cutest little words to avoid cursing in front of her. ‘ _Fubbling frizzy cookiemonster_ ’, he once said when he almost went for the F-word.

Which reminded her that he was, in fact, still her babysitter. Her babysitter that just burned his lip off – and okay, maybe that was a bit too dramatic. But still. He was still her babysitter that she fucked last night.

At one point she was going to have to sit down with him and actually discuss what happened, and she wasn’t sure if she wanted that to happen as soon as possible or push it off forever. Was this going to be a one-time event or could this eventually turn into _something_? Both options scared her. The idea of last night not repeating itself, was not an option she seriously wanted to consider. But then again, the other option was scary as fuck too. Could this turn into a relationship? Would that work? She had all these things to figure out but then Harry looked at her, and her brain forgot what she was thinking about.

His smirk was widespread on his face, and. He really was hot.

“What?” Asks Harry, giving her a weird look she couldn’t quite understand. “Why that face? Did you burn yourself too?” He joked. “That fucking tea.”

“ _You’re so hot._ ” She thought out loud and pulled her hand up to her mouth like she could push back her words into her throat.

Harry laughed and pulled her hand away from her face, and placed a soft kiss on her lips. “Good morning, darling.”

 

xxxxx

 

Five minutes ago she heard Harry turned had off the shower, and she decided to look up the opening times of the partyshop in the city on her laptop.

She heard Harry’s footsteps come back in the living room. “Your shampoo is really nice. I love your towels. Very pink.”

She tried to stop herself from saying something stupid. Like, _why didn’t I dry you off myself?_ Or, _we could jump in together next time._ She didn’t want to assume there would be a next time. What if there won’t be? That would be a proper letdown.

“What are you doing today? Besides college?” Grace asked, eyes focused on her laptop.

“Uhm, nothing really. I’m think I’m just not going today. Like, I just need to be there for an hour, what’s the point of that, you know?”

She nodded and looked up at him. A sigh escaped her mouth without permission, “Wow.” He was just standing there in the doorway. Leaning his shoulder to the wall, and staring back at her. No shirt on, no jeans, just boxers hugging his hips tightly. His hair was still wet from the water. Definitely worth a wow.

Unclothed Harry standing right in front of her, and she was supposed to act like a normal human being? How was that fair? Nothing was fair. Life wasn’t fair. She tried not to stare at the tattoos on his torso, but they looked so good on him. The one she was so curious about last night turned out to be a detailed piece of a butterfly on his abs. She hadn’t expected it to be a _butterfly_. Cause what twenty year old guy gets a giant piece of a butterfly on their stomach? But it was perfect and _so_ Harry. And then the leaves tattooed on his hips, curving perfectly to the shape of his body. The tiny little love-handles where his boxers clung tight to his skin, and his muscles visibly moving with every breath he took – Oh, she was undeniably staring.

She quickly met his eyes to see if he noticed, and he was already staring back at her with a large grin on his face. So okay, he had noticed, but Jesus, what did he expect?

“Hate getting dressed while I’m still wet.” He explained with a shrug and walked over to sit beside her on the dark-grey couch, “Especially the jeans I was wearing, you know? Like, _you_ wear skinny jeans. How did you just get them on so quickly after showering?” He scanned over her face and then signaled to his chest, “Oh? Do you mind?”

“What?” Him being half naked? She laughed at the ridiculous question, because, why would she ever mind that? She decided that if she couldn’t keep her cool, which she obviously couldn’t, it was probably best to just laugh about it all. Like, come on, he had to be aware of how hot he was, right? She probably wasn’t the first person he got all nervous around him. And somehow, the idea of that made her chest feel a little tight.

“Is that a _genuine_ question?” She grinned.

“Yeah.”

“It’s fine, Harry.” She said while patting his thigh besides her. Skin soft, squishy, but muscles strong. “I mean, nothing I haven’t seen before, is it?”

He made a little sound of laughter in his throat, and then threw his arm around her shoulder. She looked up at his face and saw how a smug smirk spread on his face again. And – wait. Was he doing this on purpose? Making her all flustered like this?

“That’s true.” He began and then looked over at her laptop. “You wanna go to the partyshop together?”

“They probably have some ideas for the party.” She explained.

“ _Hey_ ,” Harry said, sounding offended, “ _I_ have ideas. I even made a list of things we need to get.”

 

xxxxx

 

“I can’t believe you actually made a list.” She laughed as they walked into the partyshop.

“Why?” He asked, but didn’t wait for a reply, “I’m helping you plan the party, right? What did you expect me to do?”

She grabbed the list out of his hands, “Well, I didn’t expect for you to literally write down all of the details, like, plastic plates. Especially this,” She grinned while pointing at one line. “You literally wrote down ‘ _35 red clown’s_ noses’. With a little drawing of a clown’s nose beside it. Colored it in, as well. For if I forgot what a _red_ clown’s nose looks like.”

He shrugged, “First one to find the noses, wins.”  
“Wins what?” She questioned, but when she looked besides her, Harry had already moved on to another aisle. She just caught a grin before his face disappeared behind some shelves. She shook her head, he was such a fucking idiot. She fucking loved him – wait, what.

 

She was looking at some of the different partyhats and got a little lost in thought, but then she felt some weird texture brushing against her cheek and, “Oh my god,” she broke out in laughter as she realized it was Harry wearing a clown’s nose, rubbing it against her face.

“Stop it.” She laughed, the tickling made her giggle and snort in all the wrong and most unattractive ways. Harry made it even harder for her to get her laughter under control when he pulled her into a weird sideways hug. He rubbed the strange nose against her even though she halfheartedly tried to push him away. “Oh my god, Harry, you’re ridiculous.”

“Whyyyy,” he laughed, “it’s like an Eskimo kiss. But different.”

She giggled and tried to push his chest away. “I’m literally about to…” she laughed loudly, it was probably a good thing it was so early in the morning and the shop was mostly empty, it would’ve been so embarrassing if people were around. “I swear, Harry, I’m gonna pee my pants.”

Harry pulled himself back a little, and gave her some time to calm down. He figured that if she _actually_ was about to pee, they’d probably have to mop it up, or something. And that would’ve been a bit embarrassing for everyone involved.

 

“You didn’t even try to win this clown’s nose competition, did you?”

She shook her head. “Sorry, babe.”

“It’s fine, darling.” He shrugged, and leaned in to kiss her cheek, the nose squishing awkwardly against her cheekbone. “You just knew I would win anyway.”

She snorted again, and sarcastically told him, “Yeah, that’s _exactly_ the reason why I didn’t participate.”

“Well, I won anyway. So now you have to wear a clown’s nose until we’re done and get to the cashier.”

Grace laughed and protested for a second before she decided to accept her faith as a loser. He grabbed a red nose out of the basket that he put on the floor behind her before he startled her. He settled the nose down on her own nose. “I can’t believe I’m accepting this.” She grinned.

“But,” He said, and points to the red nose still attached to his face. “Since we’re such a good team,” he winked exaggeratedly, “I’ll do it too. Solidarity and stuff.”

She decided to get a red and white striped partyhat off the shelf and placed it on top of his messy hair. “No, you’re just a dork who wants to make a fool out of both of us.” She secured the elastic underneath his chin and snaps it against his skin. A tiny bit of revenge.

He flinched, and said, “Fair enough.”

Harry refused to move on before Grace accepted that wearing a hat was apparently also part of the deal they made with the ‘find the clown’s nose competition’. Eventually she accepted it, and in ‘solidarity’ he kept his one on as well.

 

They decided that the red and white striped partyhats would be the best fit for the party. The circus on the invitation had the same colored stripes, and Harry convinced Grace that it would be nice if they had a theme going throughout the party.

Harry grabbed a packet with 10 colors of facepaint in it, he held it up for Grace’s approval and when she nodded, he put it in the basket.

Once they got to the princess part of an aisle, Harry headed straight off to a little tiara laying on a purple fluffy pillow with fake rhinestones embroidered on it.

“Amazing,” commented Grace after he put it on his head and showed it off. “You should wear that to the party.”

“I will.” He said, and he posed as she took some picture with her phone. Eventually end up with about 40 selfies, half of them were ruined by both of them breaking out in laughter. With the red nose, party hat and the tiara on, he still managed to look hot as fuck. Grace got a little worried that she might’ve already been a bit _too_ in love with him. Because people with clown’s noses on were not supposed to look hot.

 

“So,” Harry started as they wandered through the wigs-section. Her hands slid through the synthetic hair of a purple wig as he continued, “I had this thought. You know I’ve got some ideas for the party, right? About the games, and the food. So I was thinking that it might be fun if it’s kind of a surprise.”

She hummed. “Yeah, but I already vaguely told Lucy about our ideas.”

“No,” He said quickly. “What if it’s a surprise for _you_? What if I just take over from here? Just arrange the games and everything else by myself?”

Grace stared at him for a second. “Why would you want that?”

 

And then it hit her. He didn’t want to do this _together_ anymore. Not as a team. Not with her. “Are you trying to tell me something?” She said, not trying to sound as disappointed as she felt. It was about last night, she was sure of it. He was having doubts about Grace. Doubts about how to keep things non-awkward between them. She swallowed around nothing, her mouth got dry so quickly, and she wondered when it apparently all went wrong. She hadn’t noticed any signs of discomfort from Harry so far. It seemed to have gone relatively smooth today, hadn’t it? Or was she just imagining things? But. But. _He_ had been the one who initiated most physical contact between them. He must’ve had a quick change of heart then.

“What?” Harry said, confused look in his eyes. He studied her face as he got closer to her. The angle of light in the shop made the crease between his brows seem even darker and deeper. “It’s not that I _don’t_ want to do this together.”

“No?” She asked, careful.

“I mean, I think it’d be nice if you could see that I can make it work on my own, you know? And I think it would be nice for _you_ if you could, just, chill. So you won’t have to worry about anything. Do you get what I mean?”

She nodded.

“I, er, can still come by your house a lot though, right? And, you know, talk about things, and see you? I mean,” he hesitated for a second, but then laid his hands on her hips, “if you want that?”

She nodded again, not really knowing what to say. She wasn’t quite sure if he was just trying to let her down easy.

“Why are you looking at me like you don’t understand any of the words I just said?”

She snorted a little. “You’re still wearing a clown’s nose, party hat and a _fucking_ tiara. That might’ve clouded your message.” But then her smile fell quickly. “I’m not sure what you’re saying. But I’m probably reading too much into it.”

“Look.” He said, his fingers stroked over her sides. “Zayn said he would print the invitations tomorrow. What if you write the names of the kids on it, and make sure Lucy hands them out at school?”

“Okay.” She said.

“And you’ll get the conformations from the parents. About who will or won’t be coming. You can arrange that, right?”

“Okay.” She agreed.

“Then _I’ll_ make sure we have good snacks at the party? And I’ll be in charge of organizing all the games and activities, yeah?”

“That is not an equally divided plan. If you want that.” She shrugged. “Fine. But I just thought you wanted to do this as a team? Why not anymore?”

“I do.” He said with face slowly moving closer to her. Their red noses were almost bumping and Grace was glad no one was in their aisle to see them look like actual idiots. She hoped no one was bored enough to look at the camera footage of the security cameras. “I do, darling. I just figured that it would be a good way to show you I’m capable of being responsible. I can take care of things, okay? You have enough to do with your work and everything. I only have to spend a couple hours a day reading things for college. And,” he added with a smirk, “We could spend our time together doing other things.”

“Other things.” She repeated, suddenly finding the plan to sound a lot better.

He smirked up to her. “That’s the deal, you let me take care of things. So we can do _other things_ together. Good plan?” She nodded and saw his green eyes widen a little in excitement when he said, “Would it be really freaky if I kissed you while both being dressed like this?”

She snorted, “Without a doubt it’d be freaky,” and then with a shrug she clarified, “Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t though.”

So Harry pulled her closer. Their big round noses hit each other awkwardly a couple times and by the time Harry’s lips had found hers, they were both just laughing into each other’s’ mouths.

“Freaky.” Grace laughed, and then Harry promised her that she owed a proper kiss from him when they got back home. She promised to make sure he kept his word.

 

xxxxx

 

Harry stayed at Grace’s house until they had to pick Lucy up from school. Lucy came running up to them as soon as the doors open and hugged them both tightly in one big group hug. “Did you have fun at Joey’s house?” Grace asked.

“Yes, but I missed you so much, mom.” Lucy dived into a story right away and was already walking off the playground.

Grace has to interrupt her for a second, “Luce, I think you forgot your backpack inside your class. Can you get it real quick? Wanna hear everything when you come back, okay?” She ran back inside, her little legs moving quicker than ever and Grace just cringed, hoping she wouldn’t fall.

“Gracie,” Harry began, “I see a dad of a kid I used to babysit, do you know him? Ben?” He asked as he pointed towards a dark haired man with a neatly trimmed beard. “I’m just gonna go say hi. I’ll be right back in a minute, okay?”

She nodded real quick and watched him do one of those weird guy hugs where they pat each other’s back just a bit too hard. She never quite understood that.

“Grace?” A woman’s voice said behind her, she turned around to find three moms already surrounding her. She never really spend much time talking to them before but they always seemed nice. They asked how she was, and appeared to be strangely interested in her. Grace wasn’t sure why but she decided not to think too much of it.

After less than a minute into the conversation, one of moms interrupted Grace. Apparently Lucy had told some of her friends in her class that she found Harry splayed on the couch yesterday morning. And the fact that Harry had brought her to school had not gone unnoticed as well. The mom asked if Grace was slowly trying to integrate her boyfriend into Lucy’s life by making him pretend he was her babysitter before she’d break it to her daughter that he was, in fact, her boyfriend.

She didn’t really know what to say to that, because. Wow. She just laughed a little. “Well, that’s quite a theory you have there. Really thought it out, haven’t you? Not really, though.” She smiled politely, “Lucy loves Harry a lot, doesn’t she? She keeps asking him to stay over and have a pajama party with her and her friends. Oh, speaking of parties…” And she went on to tell them about the birthday party they had planned and tried to avoid mentioning anything else that could bring back the conversation to Harry. She was glad that Lucy arrived soon so the moms left her alone.

Lucy hugged Grace tightly again and didn’t stop talking for about a minute, “Mom, I missed you so much. Sleepover with Joey was fun, but I missed you _so_ much. Joey said it was a bit weird of me because I was only staying over there for one night. He told me that he once hadn’t seen his parents for three days! That’s so long, three days. But he’s a little bit older. So maybe that’s a little different. Hey mom, Ashley told me that her mom said Harry is your boyfriend now. Is he your boyfriend? Cause, that would be a bit weird, he kind of really is _my_ boyfriend, isn’t he?”

Grace smiled at the little girl who, luckily, didn’t wait for a reply before she went along chatting about her day. Grace jumped in with a little “Oh really?” every now and then. She couldn’t stop herself from being silently annoyed about all these parents though. She couldn’t believe the parents of her daughter’s class went ahead and told their kids about this? What were they thinking? Grace never imagined having to deal with playground gossip anymore after she left school herself, but apparently being a parent brought it all back.

Grace knew Lucy would probably start asking about Harry again soon though. She realized she had to come up with an answer quickly.

And if this thing with Harry really was turning into a relationship or whatever, she was going to have to figure out a plan to break it to Lucy too. Grace just really hoped Lucy would not ask anything awkward in front of Harry.

 

“Harryyyyy.” The little girl yelled as Harry came up to her with his arms spread widely. She hopped into his arms and he lifted her up a little. “Missed you.” She sighed.

“Did you really? You saw me yesterday.” He laughed and then whispered in her ear. “I missed you too though.” He looked up at Grace and smiled widely. She felt like she had 3000 tiny versions of Harry’s tattoo flying around in her stomach. “What did you do at school?”

Lucy answered with a great amount of detail and when they got to the car, Harry opened up the door for Lucy and made her scoop over to the next seat. Grace grinned because he always made it a point that Lucy didn’t have to sit in the backseat alone unless it was absolutely necessary.

During the drive, Harry was actively asking her questions, like he couldn’t think of anything more exciting than a boy in her class writing a little note to her friend.

“Did you read it? What did it say?”

“Will you go out with me.” Lucy told him. “But he spelled ‘with’ wrong. He forgot the H.”

“You can never forget the H.” Harry told her. And Grace glanced quickly at his face in the mirror and saw his expressive face. “Girls really don’t like it when you spell things wrong.”

Lucy made a disagreeing sound. “Ashley said yes, though.”

Harry hummed. “Good point. So did she write him a note back?”

 

Lucy let a silence fall. Which was rare in itself, but especially considering that she was in the middle of a conversation with Harry.

“Harry?” She asked, voice sounding curious behind Grace’s seat. “Why are you here picking me up? Are you mom’s boyfriend now? Are you babysitting me tonight?”

Grace pulled up to a red light and – shit. This was the moment she was scared of. She needed more time to figure out how to explain things to Lucy. But how could she figure out what to tell Lucy if she wasn’t even sure what was going on herself? She checked to see Harry’s face in her mirror. His expression hadn’t really seemed to change much though.

“Yes, I’m _sort_ _of_ babysitting you.” He answered. “I’m just kind of hanging out with you tonight, is that okay? Mom will be home too, though. We’re all just going to hang out a little, yeah? I haven’t asked mom if she’s okay with it yet, but how do you feel about making our own pizza tonight?”

Lucy squealed excitedly and yelled, “Can I put pineapple on it?”

“I’m not sure if we have that,” said Harry, and leaned forward to tap Grace’s shoulder to get her attention. She grinned. Just because she was driving didn’t mean she paid no attention to what was happening in the backseat. “Do we have pineapple?”

“I think we do.” Grace answered, smiling at how Harry used _we_.

Harry and Lucy then broke out into the themesong of Spongebob and Grace’s smile widened even further, because, how did Harry just dodge the question so expertly.

 

xxxxx

 

Harry had been coming over to their house almost every day since that night the three of them made home-made pizza and sang along to Selena Gomez in the kitchen. Grace and Harry each read Lucy an entire chapter out of Lucy’s book before she went to bed.

Harry had gone home 10 minutes after Lucy fell asleep. They did kiss after Harry grabbed his coat off his hook, and Grace almost asked him to stay over again. But in the middle of their kiss, his phone rang, Niall on the other side asked Harry if he was coming home and if he could bring takeaway. She watched him get in his car from the window and did a really embarrassing half-wave when he caught her watching him. He smiled back and blew her a kiss.

 

The day after that he rang Grace’s phone and said that he went by their house to drop off the invitations but no one was home. Eventually, Harry came over to the playground where Grace and Lucy were. He brought a cloth for them to sit on, bottles of soda and cupcakes. He wanted them to try them out and see which one they liked best for the party.

“Think we should go heavy on the banana.” Harry decided after listening to the comments of Grace and Lucy. “Can you make pineapple cupcakes?” Lucy asked, and Harry promised that he would look it up for her.

 

xxxxx

 

Grace had a dinner and board game night planned with Sophia’s family for weeks, they planned a night like that every other month and sometimes even more often than that. When Grace mentioned it to Harry, he shyly asked if it might be a good time for him to meet Sophia and Liam. He already told Grace that he probably needed a bit more hands at the birthday party than he expected, and she reminded him that they already offered to help. Harry grinned and said he preferred to meet Sophia and Liam before he set them to work. Also, Sophia had been texting her for days asking her when she could finally properly meet Harry. So she really didn’t have to think twice about inviting Harry over as well.

 

She didn’t exactly expect him to show up at her house three hours early with two bags of groceries and two bottles of wine ready. “Just thought it’d be fun if I cooked.” He shrugged. Grace told him to get his ass to the couch and watch a movie with Lucy.

“Don’t need you to come and save me.” She told him with a grin on her face.

“I know. I never doubted that, darling.”

“Good.” She told him with a confident smile.

He sighed dramatically, but then Lucy shouted from the living room, “Harry can you practice monopoly with me? I always lose.”

 

When the doorbell rang, Grace started to feel nerves building up insider her. Sophia almost certainly understood that she wasn’t supposed to ask too many questions about their relationship status, and she probably told Liam that he had to keep his mouth shut about it too. But it still made her nervous, properly introducing Harry to them. She knew they would get along anyway, because her friends were lovely and Harry could charm anyone. But it almost made something official, the fact that Harry wasn’t _just_ her babysitter anymore. She wasn’t quite sure what he _was_ though, but having dinner with friends wasn’t something people usually involved a babysitter with.

 

After dinner, Lucy convinced them all to play monopoly. She promised Joey that she hadn’t practiced at all, and attempted to wink to Harry. Both her eyes twitched awkwardly though, and Grace tried to hold in her laughter because Lucy was everything but subtle.

Sophia didn’t play along with the game herself, she just helped both Joey and Lucy manage their money, monopoly really was too hard for them to do it on their own. Harry and Liam quickly got competitive with each other, they didn’t seem to realize Grace was doing better than of all of them. She just laughed at them being ridiculous, they even started a rap battle at one point, there really wasn’t a clear winner though, they both failed pretty harshly.

After about half hour, Liam landed on Grace’s hotel and Harry yelled “Yes, Gracie.” He swung an arm around her and pressed his lips forcefully on hers. She pushed him away, because – what was he doing? Lucy was right there with them? Luckily, only Liam saw it happen, the kids were too caught up with Sophia counting their money. But still.

“Harry.” Grace whispered under her breathe, “Don’t fucking do that.”

He wasn’t allowed to just decide to kiss her in front of her daughter, not like that. Harry looked back at her with a confused look. She shook her head and was glad when Sophia resumed the game like nothing happened, and she was even gladder Liam kept his mouth shut about what he saw.

 

But after Sophia and her family left, and Lucy was fast asleep in her bed, Grace and Harry ended up together on the couch. “We need to talk.” She began, pulling her feet up on the couch, facing Harry.

“About what?”

“You kissed me.” She said, she wasn’t sure how her voice was supposed to sound. She wasn’t angry, but she needed to be clear. She wasn’t sure how to balance that but she tried to stay calm, “You kissed me in front of my friends. In front of Lucy. We haven’t discussed anything about that, and we avoided letting her see any form of affection before. Why did you decide it was suddenly okay to do that? You can’t just make that choice on your own, Harry.” She sighed and pulled her hair up in a ponytail. “I’m her mom, I’m responsible for what she sees. It’s not fair you went ahead and…”

“I just wanted to celebrate that you were beating Liam at the game,” He said, shrugging, like it wasn’t a big deal. He pulled his own feet on the couch as well, mirroring Grace. “They seemed to know what was going on between us anyway.”

“ _Lucy_ was there.” She sighed. “Sophia knew what was going on. Obviously, because she’s my friend and I told her. But Harry, Lucy was sitting _right_ there.”

“I just thought you didn’t mind kissing.” He tried, brows furrowing.

She sighed loudly, she had hoped he would just understand without having to explain. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to kiss him. She always wanted that, that wasn’t the issue. “I just don’t want her to know that we’re hooking up yet. It’s really not _that_ hard to understand, is it?”

Harry’s eyes stared intensely back at her, and she shifted nervously under his gaze. She didn’t know why her throat felt so tight, like she was either about to cry or scream. She felt like there was a weight on her chest and her whole body just started hurting.

“Well, apparently it _is_ hard for me.” He said annoyed.

“You’re her babysitter, Harry. I’m her mom. That should be enough to be a little worried about what is happening between us. And especially about who knows about it.” She spitted out. “For _you_ it’s different, there’s nothing at stake for you. This is just your job, but she’s my daughter. I don’t want Lucy to see me with men who just come and go.”

“What is _that_ supposed to mean?” Harry asked, leaning back with an offended look on his face. He took a deep breath, and then just as he was about to speak again, he snorted a quick laugh, “Just my job? Are you kidding me? This is not my job, Grace. Planning the party might’ve started out as a job. But.” He shook his head and licked his lips before continuing. “Coming over to your house almost every day? Picking up Lucy to drive her to a friend’s house so we can have dinner together? Driving to your work to have lunch together on the bench in front of your office? Sleeping with you? Picnicking with you and your daughter? Having dinner and game night with your friends?” He paused for a second, a brief flash of hurt on his face. “That’s _not_ my job.”

Grace moved her gaze to her lap, not wanting to face the silence.

Harry started again, voice angrier than she ever heard him. “And what did you even mean with _men who come and_ _go_? Where am I _going_? If you want me to leave,” He let out a breath, and rephrased himself, “if this is your way of saying you want to stop with whatever is going on between us, _fine_. Just go ahead and tell me what my job is, how much you’ll pay me for it, and I’ll stick to that.”

She didn’t noticed how she’d been holding her breath until she met his eyes and all air escaped her lungs. It felt like his stare punched it right out of her. She blinked a tear away and wanted to reach out for Harry’s tensed up jaw, she wanted to lean in and kiss him until his face softened up. Wanted to do whatever it would take for Harry’s eyes to lighten up again.

“I didn’t mean it like that. That’s not…” She said, her voice broke. “That’s not what I want at all.”

“Me neither.” He said, shaking his head. A sad smile tugged on his mouth. “Don’t want this to stop at all. So why do you not want to tell Lucy?”

“What am I supposed say, Harry? I don’t even know what’s going on between us _myself_ , how am I supposed to answer her? What do I reply with when she asks if you’re my boyfriend? There are too many questions and no answers at all.” She sighed, not wanting to think about this, “What happens after this party is over? Will you still come over as much, and will everything be the way it is now?” She paused for a second but didn’t let Harry reply. “I’m supposed to create a stable environment for my daughter. I can’t just go around sleeping with people. I need to know I have something steady going on before I can let her know about it.” She moved her hand over to his ankle and splayed her fingertips over the edge of his jeans, she tried to soften her voice, hoping to make sure that she didn’t come across as angry. Because she really wasn’t. “That’s what I meant to say before. You know she loves you more than anything, right? How am I going to explain it to her if something happens between us and it gets too awkward for us to be around each other? Do you honestly think she’s not going to be heartbroken if she can’t see you anymore? I don’t want her to be hurt like that. That’s my job as her parent, being stable and making sure she doesn’t get hurt.”

Harry nodded, his face had turned a little softer, but his eyes still seemed sad. Maybe even sadder than before. “I get that.” He said thoughtfully and repeated, “I get that.”

Grace looked down at her hands, Harry moved his fingers over hers and laced them together. After a minute of staring at their hands, Harry said, “You’re right, you know what’s best for both you and Lucy. I’m sorry about tonight. Didn’t really think it through.”

 “It’s okay.” She smiled at him, sleep started weighing down her eyelids.

“I get it now. Gimme a cuddle.” He said, and he leaned down on the couch, and she crawled up next to him, exactly how they started out the first night they slept together.

“You do need to figure out what you want to tell Lucy soon though, because after the party we don’t really have an excuse anymore on why I’m coming over a lot. And I would very much still like to come over a lot.”

“I know.”

“But,” He began, tracing shapes on her skin, “just so you know, I think I could actually be part of keeping things stable for her. She knows me, she knows what I’m like. It’s not like I’m a stranger. And if something goes wrong between us two, I really believe we can be civil enough to make sure I can still be there for Lucy. And to be fair,” He started grinning, “I did love her first, before I started loving you.”

Grace laughed at that, “Same for me.” She wondered if that counted as saying ‘ _I love you_ ’ to each other. She decided it probably did. So she leaned up from his chest and puckered her lips exaggeratedly, asking for a kiss. He laughed and cupped her face in his palm, and leaned in to kiss her. “Do you want me to go home tonight?” He whispered in her mouth.

“I never do.” She replied, and wasn’t sure if that was too honest or not.

 


	3. Chapter 3

The last three days before the party, Harry stayed over continuously. They kept a story up to Lucy that he was setting things up for the party and he needed time for that. It was partly true. And they also told her that Harry had backproblems and that’s why he couldn’t stay on the couch. That was also partly true.

When Grace was working and Harry didn’t have to go to college, he spend most of his time at her house making sure he had everything he needed for the party on Saturday. Every afternoon when Grace and Lucy came home, Grace saw that the pile of stuff underneath the canvas in the backyard had gotten bigger. She really started worrying that Harry might’ve put way too much effort into this.

The day before the party, Lucy went to play at a friend’s house after school, so Grace and Harry baked cupcakes together. He brought the matching aprons again. Harry told her about the woman at the bakery he used to work with, who always pinched his bum.

“I can see why she’d do that.” Grace laughed, checking out his little butt and nodding.

“Hey,” He laughed, “Don’t stare, that’s rude. And she was like 50.” He replied.

“Doesn’t chance your cute butt.” She replied.

He used the icing bag in his hand to draw a butt on her face with lemon frosting, and then had a stupid grin on his face.

“What is it?” She asked, not sure if she wanted to know.

“Buttface.” Harry laughed.

 

 

xxxxx

 

 

The day of Lucy’s birthday, Harry had ‘grounded’ both Grace and Lucy. The entire morning they weren’t allowed in the kitchen, living room and backyard. Grace tried to argue, really, but when Harry offered her breakfast in bed and she realized her and Lucy could watch movies all morning long, she accepted it. Also, Harry threatened to stop kissing her for an entire week if Grace didn’t cooperate. That might’ve had something to do with her decision to stay in her room even though she heard all these people in her backyard. A couple voices she didn’t recognize, and also the Irish guy that laughed a lot.

 

“I’m not gonna let you blindfold me.” Grace laughed when Harry came to get them from their bedroom to see what he had accomplished. “Come on, Harry, don’t be silly.”

“Hurry up, mom, I wanna see.”

Grace looked next to her and saw Lucy’s little hands clasped together in front of her chest, she was jumping up and down like she just couldn’t contain her excitement anymore. Harry had already blindfolded her half a minute ago.

“Grace, you _have_ to.” Harry said, playing up a disappointing pout.

And, fine, okay, she couldn’t really refuse him anything anymore after she heard his alarm go off at 7 this morning. “Okay, go for it.” She sighed, letting him cover her eyes with a rolled up towel. He tied it around the back of her head, and when it was secured, she felt Harry’s lips pressed softly against her neck. They both giggled softly, because Lucy was literally _right_ _next_ to them, and they still didn’t tell her anything about how they’ve been kissing a _lot_ lately.

“Okay.” Harry said, guiding them.

“Where are we going?” asked Grace, noticing they were not heading towards the backyard.

“You need to see how the guests of Lucy’s circus will experience it, right?” He walked them outside of their own front door and, “Ta-daaaa.” He yelled, taking both the blindfolds off to showcase a huge banner in front of the door that said _Welcome to Lucy’s circus_ , with a big red arrow below it, pointing towards the door.

“Oh my god,” Grace exclaimed, and send a huge smile to Harry. “That’s amazing.”

“Welcome… to Lucy’s… cir… circus.” Lucy read slowly, and then squealed excitedly and jumped up and down again, she literally crashed into Harry to give him a hug. “I can’t believe I’m having my own circus party, how cool is that?”

“It _is_ really cool.” He grinned, and opened up the door to let them in. “Let’s go to the backyard, okay?” He told to Lucy, and the words hadn’t even escaped his mouth before she was already there, yelling, “Mom. Wowie! Wowie! Look at that!” Grace looked at all the tiny arrows stuck to the wall in the little hallway, all pointing in one direction to the backyard.

 

xxxxx

 

A little before noon, Grace was at the door saying hi to all the kids that were storming in. Some of the little wild ones already ran passed her before she could even hand them a clown’s nose and partyhat. When Grace assumed that most of the kids were inside, she joined a group of parents chatting in her living room that was way too small to host this many people at the same time. Grace really hadn’t expected so many parents to crowd up like this, she kind of assumed they would drop off the kids and leave.

But almost all of the parents wanted to peek into the backyard, and some of them lingered way longer than she wanted them to. But at least Harry saw how impressed everyone was by the set-up, and he really deserved to hear how great he planned everything

 

One mom looked at Grace with an expression she couldn’t quite understand, and asked Grace how she had organized all of this by herself. She replied with a polite smile and said she had great help, she tilted her head towards the backyard where some of Harry’s friends and her own were guiding the kids. She wasn’t sure if she was supposed to mention Harry’s name, Harry was chatting to everyone anyway so they’d find out he was the one that arranged most of it anyway.

“How’s Harry, your…” The mom asked, she pretended to hesitate, and then finished with “babysitter?” There was suggestive tone in her voice and Grace decided that she _really_ didn’t like this mom. Harry walked up behind her, and for a second Grace wondered if he overheard the conversation or if he just had really great timing.

“Hi, how are you today? Nice to meet you all, I’m Harry.” A couple of the moms raised their eyebrows at Grace, and she fought the urge to roll her eyes at them.

He sent a smile to every person in their little circle, and Grace was impressed by how everyone already seemed to have their full attention on Harry. She couldn’t believe how it didn’t make him nervous. It didn’t even seem to affect him at all. He pushed some hair out of his face and put one of his hands on his belt buckle, “Lucy assigned me to be the security guard of her circus. Not sure why cause my muscles aren’t that big.” He joked.

The parents immediately chimed in with “Oh, you seem muscled enough.” And “Oh, don’t be so humble.” They were all so eager to be in a conversation with him, it made her want to sigh and roll her eyes at them excessively. But then she remembered how she felt the first time they made out. She was probably more embarrassing than off all the parents combined.

“Thank you all.” Harry laughed. “But I’m not here to get complimented. I’m here because I’m going to have to check your ID’s. Lucy, the hostess of Lucy’s circus,” he explained, obviously loving playing this role, “She demanded that we don’t serve to anyone above the age of 14.”

The parents laughed and Grace wondered where he learned to charm people so easily. He grinned widely and said, “So do I have to escort you out or will you be able to find the door by yourself?” The parents laughed again and all agreed that they could find the exit themselves. “Don’t forget to take a cupcake though. Grace and I made them ourselves so Lucy has absolutely no say over them.” Harry added. “Cupcakes are for all ages.”

 

A dad patted his shoulder and said, “You’re a funny guy.” He walked by Grace and tapped her shoulder as well. “Please make sure Jake doesn’t break his neck on that unicycle. He’s not the brightest.”

“Harry has 5 emergency kits ready.” She assured him with a laugh that made it sound like she was kidding. But she really wasn’t. Harry pointed them all out to her while introducing her to her friends in the backyard.

 

Harry had everything figured out. His friends, and Sophia and Liam, came over hour before the first kids arrived and he briefed them in to the plan of the day.

He had assigned Sophia to be the ‘head of snacks’, as he called it. She was in charge of the lemonade booth and filling the kids’ tubs of popcorn. And of course, the cotton candy. However, the cotton candy machine really wasn’t a fan of Sophia, so Harry had to step in and fix it every other 10 minutes. And apparently the machine wasn’t a fan of Harry either, so Sophia’s husband had to come to the rescue every now and then.

Harry had pre-made cups of cubed fruit that he set up in the lemonade booth, but after an hour he realized that none of the kids really ate any of them. So he had decided to hand them out to the kids.

 

Grace overheard him make up a story about how strawberries were supposed to be good for your hips, and that eating loads of them would make you a better hula hooper. When he saw that Grace caught him, he got up from crouched position and shrugged, “Little white lies.”

Grace nodded, pretending to take him seriously. She was about to go rescue Sophia when she heard her yell that her hair was stuck in the cotton candy machine again, but then Liam yelled, “Got it.” Grace wondered when Sophia suddenly got so clumsy, she was quite sure she’d had never been like this before she met the cotton candy machine.

 

Grace decided to stick around and watch Harry demonstrate his own hula hooping skills to the kids. The kids were all giggling at him, and Grace joined their laughter without any shame. “Your hips are really lacking skills, Harry. Guess you don’t eat enough strawberries.”

His hula hoop fell to the floor quickly after, his face lighted up when he met Grace’s eyes, “That’s not what you said last night.” He mouthed to her, and quickly looked over to see if any of the kids around him might’ve caught him, but luckily they were all distracted by one of the girls’ ability to spin the hoop around her ankle.

Grace grinned, “Fair enough.”

 

The two of them decided to walk around, and see if any of their friends might be in need something.

Liam was helping the kids try to balance on a tightrope Harry had set up between two metal blocks, the rope was just about two feet up in the air and there was a big air mattress underneath it. Grace finally understood why she came into the living room this morning to find Harry’s face bright-red, and a half full air mattress in his arms. He was too out of breath to tell her off for getting lemonade out of the kitchen.

Nothing much would happen if the kids did manage to fall off the tightrope, but they seemed to think they were balancing on the edge of a skyscraper. “It’s less scary when you’ve had a couple drinks.” Liam assured, holding the hand of a really nervous boy. Somehow that comment ended up setting a game in motion where the kids tried to walk over the rope while drinking lemonade.

“It really _does_ help to drink a lot.” Lucy told Grace and Harry excitedly, and they tried really hard not to laugh.

“Lemonade has amazing powers.” Harry agreed with her, and offered her a cup of fruit, “Bananas are good for balance too, did you know that?”  
Lucy’s eyed turned into little slits and with a suspicious tone, she said, “Now you’re just making stuff up, right?”

Grace laughed so hard that she was sure her laugh was even louder than Niall’s.

“No,” Harry said, trying to keep a straight face, his dimple shining through just a little. Grace patted him on the back as a sign of comfort. “It’s like, ‘cause, bananas aren’t perfectly straight, like, they’re bended a bit. But they still keep upright when you eat them, you know? So it’s like. That has to do with balance.”

Lucy picked a piece of strawberry out of the cup and then pushed the cup back to Harry. “That makes no sense at all.”

“Owned by a 7 year old.” Grace laughed, and Lucy attempted to walk over the tightrope again. Harry pouted and Grace pulled him into a sideways hug and teased him. “It’s fine, you can still tell your stupid stories to me, I’ll listen and pretend to believe you. Good banana theory, by the way. Very solid explanation.” She grinned. “Also, you’ve got a way around words, you really do.”

“Shut up, you.” Harry grinned before they moved on to check on Louis.

 

Louis was helping the kids attempt to ride unicycles. Grace was still wondering how Harry arranged to rent 3 unicycles in the first place. Where the hell could you even rent _one_ unicycle?

Louis was holding up little Jake as he tried to balance himself on the saddle. It didn’t seem to go that smoothly, and Grace got a bit worried the little guy might _actually_ break something in his excitement to try. But Harry laughed, telling her that Louis used be more reckless than anyone, so he knew how to handle the crazy kids.

“And,” Harry added, “I forced him to follow a First Aid class a couple years ago. That was after he decided to glue his skin together instead of actually going to a doctor to get stitches. He should know what to do now.”

“Oh my god.” Grace grinned, not sure if she could actually trust Louis, but then after just a minute, she saw that Jake was actually starting to find his balance. He was still gripping Louis’s shoulder like his life depended on it, maybe it did actually, but it was a lot better than how she expected it to go.

 

“What time is it?” Harry suddenly asked, his face too serious for Grace’s liking. Not that he didn’t look good with a frown on his face, he just looked a lot _better_ when he was smiling and happy. His hair was loose today, and the wind was slowly starting to blow harder, messing it up a little. “You go and check up on Zayn and Niall, I’ll be right back.” He disappeared into the house before she could ask what was going on, she didn’t quite know what to think. Knowing Harry, though, he probably left his cupcakes too long in the oven or something ridiculous like that.

 

Zayn was painting the kids’ faces. “Most of the kids just want to be clowns.” He shrugged, Grace had noticed the trend going on. But Zayn had managed to make everyone’s face look different. Grace watched him turn Joey’s face into a lion.

“Why did you wanna be a lion?” Grace asked.

“They’re my fave animal. I once almost petted one in a zoo. I put my hand in the cage to pet the lion’s tale. But then mom and dad got angry.” Joey said disappointed, and Zayn grinned and asked for details.

 

Grace wasn’t sure what Niall was officially put in charge of, but he seemed to be making sure every kid was laughing. He apparently also challenged himself to not let any of the children go home without having high-fived him. Grace literally couldn’t turn her head without seeing Niall high five a kid.

“You alright?” She asked him as she walked up to him, “Need anything?”

“Could use a beer.” He laughed, and pointed to the place where some kids were throwing balls against pyramids of cans, set up on a table. “Harry told me to make sure all the kids are happy and cheerful. But over there they’re literally smashing each other’s head in if I don’t pay attention for a second. They’re all violent lads. And I just sit there and smile.” He laughed again. “It’s like I’m back in a pub. So a beer would be nice.” He got closer to her and put an arm around her.

“Think Harry left some beer in the fridge.” She though out loud.

“So, is there anything you need to tell me?” Niall asked, teasing edge to his voice. “Since Harry hasn’t been home a lot lately, Grace, are you stealing my man?”

She started a loud, but nervous laugh. She didn’t quite know what to say to that.

“Are you like, proper together now then?”

“Think you should ask him that.” She grinned. “Not sure.”

“I tried talking to him about it.” He said, and suddenly his tone got more serious. “But, I think you should talk to _each other_ about it.”

 

“No circus is complete without animals.” Harry yelled loudly from inside the house.

Both Niall and Grace turned to the sound of his voice and, “Oh my god.” They both laughed.

Harry was running into the backyard, hair flowing majestically in the wind, which was quite a nice view on its own. But. That wasn’t everything. Harry was holding leashes of 6 dressed up puppies that were running after him.

“Oh my god.” Grace laughed loudly, “What the fuck is this?” The kids all started noticing the turn of events and they were yelling all kinds of things before they ran up to the dogs and started petting them.

Harry raised his voice a little as he unleashes the dogs, and said, “Listen up, everyone, lets not scare them, okay? We’re being really nice to the dogs today, yeah? Be nice.” He didn’t get much response but then there was a lady behind him who looked about 30 and she started talking to some kids, and the kids did seem to listen to her.

“Only adults can pick up the dogs.” She heard the woman say. “You can pet them, because they like that. But if they want to leave, let them leave, okay? Or they’ll get a bit mean and we don’t want that.”

Grace got a little distracted by how gorgeous the woman’s wavy, silver hair moved in the winter breeze. But then suddenly Harry popped up in front of her, holding up a corgi with a tiny little tophat on its head. “Look at this little one.” He said, trying not to let the dog escape his awkward grip.

For a second Grace thought she literally couldn’t handle the adorableness in front of her. A corgi with a tophat on, plus, Harry just looking more excited than ever because he got to hold a dog.

“You are so cute, look at you.” Grace said as she rubbed the side of the dog’s face and the dog wriggled in Harry’s arms. Grace laughed. “Don’t drop it, babe.”

Besides them, Niall was sitting on the ground with a dog in his lap, a Golden Retriever puppy with a tutu on. Niall’s dog was totally chill about Niall cuddling it closely. And he lifted up the dog’s paw to wave at Lucy, who had ran up to them with a couple of her friends.

Harry leaned in to give some sort of weird cuddle to the little corgi in his arms, the dog wiggled again and Harry moved his limbs in all different ways to try to hold the dog in place. But the dog was determined to get back on the floor as soon as possible.

Grace was a little shocked that there was now actual proof that there _were_ actual living beings that hated Harry. She never would’ve guessed that to be a possibility. She fucking loved it, though.

Harry decided to put the corgi down on the grass, and said softly, “Sorry, it’s probably safer for you on the ground.”

He looked up at Grace again and asked, “What do you think of them? Look at the little black tophat.” Grace grinned as the corgi sprinted away from Harry.

“Oh my god.” She said, and didn’t even care about watching her language around the kids anymore, “Harry, I can’t _fucking_ believe you.” Another dog came running up to Grace and she decided to sit on the grass to pet the dogs more easily, just like Niall and a lot of other kids had.

Harry sat close, his thigh squished against hers, and shoulders bumping. “Aww, look at you!” Grace cooed as she tried to get the attention of a little labradoodle that was wearing a fake mane around his face. “You’re a little lion, aren’t you?” She petted the dog and physically _couldn’t_ stop herself from continuously commenting on how soft and fuzzy it was. The dog got distracted by some kids who had dog cookies in their hands that the silver-haired woman handed out.

And then there was a pug running past Grace, it was wearing a partyhat like a tiny version of the ones that most of the kids were wearing and she realized that Harry spend too much time thinking all of this party out if he got the dogs hat to match the party’s theme.

Another baby dog was running around and came up to sniffle Grace’s legs, the dog then decided to sit in her lap.

“Hi.” Harry said to the dog. “You’re a baby pitbull, but you’re not gonna get all scary when you grow up, are you? How are you? Are you well?” Grace couldn’t help but laugh cause Harry literally seemed like he was about to engage in a conversation with the dog. She remembered how he looked exactly the same in the picture of him with a baby that he showed her the first time they met. She felt a smile creep up on her face

“Are you a boy?” Harry asked, and the dog just stared back at him without showing any sign of understanding. “Are you a girl?” He asked. Again, no response at all. “Okay, well, are you neither?” He asked, and Grace started laughing and rubbed over Harry’s thigh, as a way of soothing the rejection. He really got turned down a lot today, didn’t he?

“I think,” Harry bit his lip and then said, “Gaby is a little nervous.”

“Gaby?” Grace asked, widening her eyes at him. The dog looked up to her name being called out. “First name basis, aren’t you?”

Harry put an arm around her shoulder, and squeezed her tightly, “That sounded a bit jealous, darling.”

“Yeah, a pitbull puppy wearing a tie with colorful dots on it. Proper competition.” She nodded, and rubbed the puppy’s ear. “No offense, little puppy.”

Grace hadn’t noticed how close their faces were again, until she felt his breath on her cheeks and she looked up to see him smile down at her. If she leaned in just a little bit she could kiss him. “You don’t have to be jealous though.” He pulled her a little closer and said, “I’ll always like you best, you know that.”

“Hey,” Niall yelled, “I heard that.” He threw a dog cookie at Harry’s face. Grace laughed when it hit him in the cheek and then rolled on to the floor.

The dog jumped off her to get to the cookie and then ran away with it in its mouth.

Harry clutched his face dramatically, and she knew he was just trying to make Niall feel bad, even though he had already slipped right back into his conversation with Louis.

“You okay?” She asked, reaching over Harry’s face. She brushed his own fingers from his cheek and rubbed her fingers soothingly over his complexion. There was nothing wrong with him, the cookie wasn’t thrown with much force or anything. But his skin felt rough underneath her thumb, and the little fine hairs catched on her fingertips, and it was such an addicting feeling, she didn’t want to drop her hand. She let her gaze fall towards his lips. Their faces were so close, and she wanted feel the warmth of his lips pressed tightly against hers. Harry noticed her focus and licked his lips instinctively. She wished it was her own tongue that felt the tiny creases of his lips.

Harry pulled back a little and shook his head subtly, like reminding her that she couldn’t kiss him. Not here, not now. She couldn’t break the news to Lucy with a public kiss, they had to tell her in an actual conversation. But Grace did realize she wanted to have that conversation with Lucy _really_ soon.

“Harry.” She began, dropping her hand. “Niall just asked me if I was stealing _his man_.” She quoted with a careful smile. “Am I doing that?”

“Well, maybe a little.” He replied, voice as soft as hers. “But there’s enough Harry for everyone.” He giggled at his own words and Grace shook her head, he was so ridiculous, and she was so in love. He was so perfect for her, and she wanted to pull him in an embrace, feel every part of his body against hers. She wanted his face in her hands, their lips crashing together, her hands pulling on is hair, his hands pulling hers. She wanted him so bad. “Why are you looking at me like that?” His voice sounded genuinely interested, and there was something so comforting about him not laughing at her obsession with his face.

“Do you remember,” She began, she cleared her throat and then lowered her voice so she was sure only he could hear it. “what we discussed a couple days ago?” She raised her brows as if that would make him understand what she was talking about. “What if I wanted to tell Lucy? About us. Today? Like, what would I say?”

He started. “I hope it isn’t, like, me being out of line. ‘Cause I don’t wanna push you, but I kind of looked up some things, like, online. And it basically said that you should let a child know that they’re still really important to the parent, and that their relationship with the parent won’t change. And like, if you’re sure you want to tell her, I think you should make sure she knows that she doesn’t ever have to worry about not getting enough attention. And that having alone time together will be just as important. Something like that?”

Grace nodded in response, that was a good start, she could work with that. “What do I say about us though?” She said, she wanted to be careful around the subject but her mouth already spilled it out, “What if she asks me if you’re my boyfriend? Are you?”

“I think you should say yes.” Harry shrugged, like it wasn’t a big deal that he just confirmed that he actually was her boyfriend.  
“So, you _are_? Like officially?”

 “Yeah, well – yeah, right?” He squeezed her tight against him

She hid her smile in his neck. “Boyfriend.” She whispered, Harry could hear the smile in her voice. She quickly got up and almost dragged him to the kitchen to kiss him, it was official then.

 

 

The kids were leaving and Grace and Niall were handing out the little goodie bags that Harry put together, there was a red and white balloon attached to little bags, and they both had Lucy’s Circus spelled on it. Grace was planning on sitting down Lucy after the kids left, but she realized she probably had to sit down Harry, her boyfriend, as well. She still grinned to herself every time she remembered that he was, in fact, her boyfriend now. She was a little worried about how much money he spend on arranging all of this.

Harry walked past Grace, carrying a brunette little boy, and she wondered where he found the kid. Harry’s grip on his side was firm and strong. “Oh really? That’s a lot of cookies. How big were the cookies?” She heard him ask the boy. She didn’t hear the answer, didn’t quite care, but there was something so nice about watching Harry with kids. Sometimes Harry looked like an overgrown toddler himself, maybe that was how he knew how to deal with kids so well.

 

After the kids had left, Grace was cleaning up the backyard with all of their friends, she continuously thanked them for helping her with this party, eventually they all just rolled her eyes at her instead of arguing again that it really was no problem.

Harry was serving everyone drinks and walked around with a little notepad so he could write down what everyone wanted so he could order Chinese take-away. Harry came up to Grace and said, “I was thinking, Lucy is apparently very good at setting her friends up with boys. What if you just ask her for advice?”

Grace nodded, “That could be good. Get her involved, and everything.”

“I’ll play along with whatever plan you two make.” He smiled, handing her a cocktail. Wait – when did Harry learn how to make cocktails?

 

xxxxx

 

“Lucy, you know how you’ve been asking a lot if Harry was my boyfriend.” She started, petting the pug that was sat on Lucy’s lap.

She gave a quick nod, and scratched the dog’s ear.

Grace leaned a little closer to her, and hid her mouth from the others, as if gossiping very obviously. She met Harry’s eyes from the other side of the backyard and had to bite back a giggle. “Do you think he should be my boyfriend?”

Lucy looked up at Grace, face lit up a bit. “Yes, of course.”

“Do you like Harry?” Grace wondered, pretending not to know the answer. “And do you think it would be fun if he was my boyfriend?”

“I love Harry.” She yelled, and Grace looked up, seeing Harry smirk and quickly turn away. “I think it’s fun if he comes to our house a lot, I like playing with him. And I like it when we bake things together. He promised that we are going to try out pineapple cakes next week. But,” she began and shrugged before saying, “I don’t think he should come live here, mom. I like being alone with you sometimes.”

“I agree with that.” Grace smiled widely. “We really have to watch the ending of the Dragon film we watched in my bed this morning. And I like it when you help me make dinner, and I love to hang around in our pajamas together and sing along to music. None of that would have to change if Harry would be my boyfriend.”

Lucy frowned, like she was deep in thought, “Harry can sing along with us too sometimes.”

She obviously hadn’t expected Lucy to suddenly start hating Harry, of course. But still, Grace was happy that Lucy seemed to open to the idea of Harry being around. “Of course Harry can join us sometimes, but sometimes I like doing things that are just for you and me.”

“Me too.”

Grace started whispering again, “Do you think I should ask him if he wants to be my boyfriend?”

“Yes.”

“Now? Shall I do it now?” Grace tried to look stressed, “I’m a little nervous.”

Lucy pulled her in a hug. “You don’t have to be nervous, mom, he loves you a lot.” Grace smiled, and kissed her hair.

“I can talk to him for you first and find out if he likes you?”  
“Yeah? Will you do that for me?”

“Yes. I did that for Lilly too.”

 

Grace watched Lucy run up to Harry, he was only just quick enough to put his beer down before he caught her into a hug. His face widened into a big smile as he spinned her around. Lucy was laughing uncontrollably, and she didn’t stop laughing even when her feet had reached the ground. Grace watched him frown a little and took his beer to follow her to sit down on the grass, just the two of them. She sees Lucy’s hands make all these little movements and she wished she could just hear what she was saying. She couldn’t quite read Harry’s lips but his face seemed like he was agreeing to everything she said. After a minute, Lucy pulled him into a big hug and then ran back up to Grace.

 

Grace pretended to be busy with her phone until Lucy’s lips reached her ear and she whispered, “He’s a little in love with you.”

“Yeah?” Grace asked, feeling how Harry’s eyes were on her as he slowly walked closer. “What did he say?”

“I asked if he liked you, and he said ‘I’m a little in love with her’.”

“Did he really say that?” She asked, not even having to fake the smile on her face. There was something exciting about hearing the words from someone.

“Yes.” She nodded excitedly, and then said, “Here he comes.”  
“Okay.” Grace replied quickly, and sat a bit straighter.

Harry sat down next to Grace.

“Hi.” Harry began. “Lucy said we needed to talk.”

Lucy nodded excitedly and said. “Good luck, mom.” Before skipping away, high fiving Liam when she ran passed him to play with his son.

“Well.” Grace grinned, a little smugly. “So you’re a little in love with me then?”

Harry licked his lips and stared at hers, “Thought that was fairly obvious.”

“Still.” She smiled, “Nice to hear. So what do we plan now? With Lucy?”

Harry shrugged, and leaned in for a kiss. They heard Louis and Liam cheer a little as they walked past them. They both kind of giggled and then pulled away, after a quick minute they called Lucy over.

 

“Is he your boyfriend now?” Lucy asked, jumping up and down.

“Yes.” Harry grinned.

“He. All thanks to you.” Grace said,

Harry poked Lucy’s tummy. “You know what I think is really cool?” Harry started and turned to Grace. “You love Lucy a lot. Like, more than anything in the world. And I love Lucy a lot too. And then _because_ of Lucy, we both realized, ‘hey we kind of love each other a little now, too’, I think that’s really cool.”

“It is.” Lucy said.

“So basically,” Grace said, “nothing much will change, right? You’ll still be alone with me a lot, just like how it always was. And we can just do what we always did. And sometimes Harry will hang out _with_ us, yeah?”

“Exactly.” Harry said, “And when I come over, sometimes I’ll play with you,” He told Lucy. “And sometimes I’ll…” he paused for a second and met Grace’s eyes, she could see he was trying not to show his smirk, “play with you.”

“That sounds good.” Grace chuckled. Lucy smiled and just a minute later, she was back to playing with Joey again.

 

 

Dusk had begun to settle in and everyone had finished their food, except for Zayn who apparently really liked to take his time. They all hung around in the backyard, Lucy and Joey were playing a board game on the grass, and Grace and Harry cuddled together while watching their friends get on like they all knew each other for years. Harry was rubbing Grace’s back and she never felt warmer on such a cold night out. She held his hands in hers, and brought them to her mouth, she moved his fingers against her lips. Harry leaned in to kiss her, gently, soft, but she could feel the love in it. She really loved him.

“Niall?” Grace called him over, she flashed Harry a quick smile before Niall crouched down in front of them. “We discussed the thing you asked me.”

“What thing?” He asked, taking a quick sip of his beer.

“We decided I’m not stealing your man.”

Niall frowned, “But you’re all – What? You’re not stealing my man?”

“That sounded a bit too disappointed for my liking.” Harry laughed. “Do you wanna get rid of me?”

Niall grinned, his face widening. “Nah, bro.”

“Just wondering,” Grace began, “Is it okay if I’m _borrowing_ your man?” She grinned and then corrected herself, “ _Our_ man, though, I guess?”

“Our man?” Niall wondered and then raised his eyebrows at Harry, “Is it official, mate?”

Harry nodded, and stared at Grace’s face while grinning, “Yes, Lucy made it very clear that I’m welcome to visit a lot, but I’m definitely not allowed to live here.”

“I like her.” Niall grinned and smiled as he stared across the backyard to the little girl beating Joey at chess.

Harry pulled Grace against him, and she told Niall, “Well, I _am_ looking for a babysitter.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe this happened. 
> 
> It's all Mimi's fault. It always is.  
> Anyway, Meemz, I love you and thanks for helping me figure out how Americans live and spell things. And thanks for making sure I knew exactly how to describe Harry's smell and thighs. I hope there are enough mentions of the butterfuck tattoo, Sophiam and fluffy things to make up for all the things I probably fucked up.
> 
> Thanks to Bel too. Thank you for helping me think of the word 'humming'. The fic wouldn't have been the same without that word, thank you.
> 
> 24k of hetfic, who would've thought. Amazing.


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